Bob Hoffman tipped me off in a tweet:
Here's something rare: Intelligent people talking about advertising. (@AdContrarian) March 4, 2021
Why is advertising so unpopular?
by Paul Feldwick
It has been widely accepted over the last few years that consumers feel advertising is a nuisance. It insists upon an unpleasant and increasingly intrusive presence in their lives and is something to be avoided if possible…
No kidding. Not that advertising in the past has always been welcomed. Culled from some surveys:
Oh! I forgot to add the dates of these surveys:
More from Why is advertising so unpopular?:
…Online advertising has contributed to this enormously, with the interruptions to people’s browsing experience by pop-ups, the creepiness of much retargeting and the sheer annoyance of autoplay videos often listed as the main offenders. There seems to be no escaping the persistent noise of advertising…
All this sounds eerily familiar. A post from 2010:
Foretellings
…The more people use smartphones, the less they’ll tolerate silly graphical doodads mucking up their small screens … Advertising on smartphones will be considered an annoyance, invasive, and rather dinky…
And 2012:
Digital Distractions
Advertisers are getting wise to the drawbacks of marketing in the digital nest … Digital interruptions are headache-inducing…
Bouncing back to Mr. Feldwick’s piece:
… Advertising as an industry regards itself as ‘of the moment’ yet, as with anything else, there is much to learn from the past. As Paul says, ‘If we don’t understand the past, we have no hope of making sense of the future.’ There is a great deal to learn from the history of advertising that has a tremendous relevance today…
Sounds about right to me. I’ve been ‘teaching’ a course on Udemy about creative advertising – dipping into the past for inspiration. The course is also on YouTube:
So kudos to Paul Feldwick. We're similar-minded fellows floating in the ether.