Do You or Does ANYONE Ever Read the Ads On the Internet or Anywhere Until You Need them?

After watching 8, yes 8 ads in a row on TV the other night I sort of exploded. If I remember correctly from my days in Journalism school, the airwaves are public ... PUBLIC and media of any kind has to pay for their use. However, since the rules seemed to have relaxed from those "Golden Years of the 60's" where no one could own more than one type of media in any market, advertising seems to have exploded. Sadly the 1976 movie NETWORK seemed to see the future and it was glum. Remember the reporter shouting out the window, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore?" I do. And, I am.
   One of the worst, as I have noted before, is CNN, definitely not the Cable News Network but the ANN ... the advertising of news network. "Pardon us as we interrupt this ad for a bit of news." And trust me, it IS just a bit before the ads resume. What is even more maddening is that we have to PAY to watch all this as they rake it in the cable door and from the advertising door. How sweet is that?

Classified ads ... the way you sold
things before Craigslist or 100
other Apps on the Internet today

Newspapers don't
show you the newest ad fad;
advertising half sheets that
fold over the front page
extending to the back. I make
 it a point to NEVER buy
that product.

  Which brings up the topic in my headline ... do you or anyone you know ever look at or click the ads that seem to have gotten worse on the Internet,  ever? In fact, what about those on TV or the sides of just about every vehicle it seems, billboards, the newspaper, junk mail? In fact, I have made it a point to never buy any product from the half sheets the  Desert  Sun  covers  the front

page here with here in the desert. Enough is enough. 

   We are now subjected to 8 minutes of ads on every 30 minute show, four more than in the 60's. They go on and on and on. In fact, at least in California, the infomercials that were once the domain of late night TV are now shown on CBS, NBC and ABC during the evening news. And they are not any shorter either ... droning on and on with and "Wait there's more..." Time for a beer, a snack or pee break, they are that long. 

   In 1967 I graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B.S. in Journalism, Advertising. The rules were much different and extremely strict. But, as we saw on 60 MINUTES the other night, money literally turns the crank in Congress. I applaud CBS and the Washington Post for making everyone aware of who buys who and why. As we now know, just as with the obesity epidemic, drug companies and their distributors with crooked doctors have turned pills that help many of us manage pain in an addiction that few can shake. I have no doubt that is what happened to the 5th Estate too. There is just too much money and few can turn it away.

You can't even ride in public transportation without ads. If
 there were an emergency you don't even know where to look

Ads literally cover the Internet. How many have you clinked
for "more" information? 

Home page on Yahoo. Now that Verizon bought
it there is no doubt going to be more ads, not less.

  In those days we designed ads by hand ... literally! We were expected to create advertisements that looked like they were printed ... no small feat. If you watched the series MAD MEN it was pretty much done like that. Other aspects were also similar like the martini lunches wooing new clients. I would literally spend all day Sunday working on my presentation for Monday. India ink, scissors, glue and whatever I could use became close friends.
   So, I know something about advertising. Yes, there were ads in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth but not with the intensity of today. I find it disconcerting to see ads in my timeline from say Amazon that reflect something I just purchased from them or anyone else for the matter. You can't get on a "home page" anywhere without it looking like this; your home page looking like Times Square. How can you even find anything? I never could and soon gave this kind of thing up. Since I reopened my Facebook page I find it hard to tell if its an ad or something posted by someone I know.
   And I have a message for Zuckerberg too. He better read Marshall McLuhan's THE MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE. Anything that carries a message disseminates, no matter what the media you are sending a message and that message makes you a media company.
   What makes it worse is that other than in your own home with the TV, radio, Internet off, no magazines or newspapers, advertising is everywhere. People are paid to cover their cars with ads, highways are sponsored by companies, you can't see a billboard that isn't either an ad or sponsored by someone. I can remember the 1984 Olympics in L.A. It was an advertisers dream. No one remembers it was the first and probably one of the only Olympics to make money. Every event was brought to you by someone and it wasn't the Olympic Committee either. I wonder what the Greeks of around 500 B.C. would have thought of that? Maybe they could have afforded to buy the athletes some clothing.
   I can hear it now, here's this grumbling old man complaining. Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for our "free", more often not so free, TV, Internet, etc. You have an ever increasing cable bill, if you have a landline there are the nagging robocalls, the cell phone costs money and the list goes on and on. And I ask, how much is enough? Really? I understand the profit principle ... I had my own business. Would advertising be more effective if there was less of it? What if advertisers paid more for each ad that aired fewer times? How many people do you turn off by overkill rather than underkill? Wouldn't you rather see fewer ads and have time to consider them rather than one after another that when they were done you find you couldn't name one!

Grocery store ads I look at.

   The only time I ever look for something is when I need it, be it a new car, tires, food at the grocery store and for fun the real estate ads that out here in the desert are the majority of the newspaper with not one but multiple inserts of million dollar homes. What about you?

  I guess what I'm asking is ... how much is enough? Do we need to be assaulted, yes ASSAULTED at every point in our day by advertising? And personally I find ads such as this (above) on my Internet pages that are, well, offensive. They are something I wouldn't want to both see or read about. There are other forums for this, not there.
   There seems to be just about nothing we can say or show on TV today. I remember when CBS canceled the Smothers Brothers over their use of the word "Damn" and their views on the Viet Nam war. Then, when Walter Cronkite came back from a tour of the Viet Nam War and said on the air, the war was lost that very comment changed both the discussion and conduct of the war.
   Maybe it time for the public to fight back against the increasingly dollar based advertising world. After all, life is more than greed and money ... or is it?

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!