Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Attack of the advertising track-downer thingies

So... Bev bought me Magix composing software for Nothing-to-do-with-religion-Mas, and so, naturally, ads for that software are popping up everywhere I cyber-travel, including on this blog. As an advertising tactic, how is that supposed to work? I mean, we already bought the product. Hello.

Count me as an advertising-bot skeptic.  That is, I think they function much more as an advertising concept than an advertising reality.  To wit, how many people buy (and re-buy) stuff they just bought?  How many people see an ad for purses/boats/cars/electronics and say, "I must have that, on top of the 10,000 other examples I've bought this week!"?  Tons of money must go into advertising bot technology, and I have to wonder if, in the cyber age, our culture's money, money, money attitude will do the Internet much good. The religion of capitalism--one that we're indoctrinated in from age 0--is that technological advancement goes hand in hand with the quest for profit (and vice versa).  What if that relationship is, in fact, flipped when we're talking about cyberspace?

Anyway, I'm not interested in buying the program Bev just got for me, but thanks anyway, Magix, and keep up the brilliant advertising scheme.


Lee

3 comments:

mel said...

That's a perspicacious observation, Lee.

Season's greetings, and good health.

senormedia said...

Well, I'd guess that the bots don't actually know that you've purchased, but only that you've searched. That's probably better, don't you think?

Lee Hartsfeld said...

Interesting. I always get ads for things I've purchased, but Bev reports being bot-stalked (is that a word?) for things she's merely looked at. So, yes. Still seems like a weird advertising approach, but, as you say, at least the bots' knowledge is limited. I've always wanted to type "the bots' knowledge is limited."