The gulliable segments of the population.

So I'm poking around at Slashdot again, and there is an article about focused advertising via cable TV. In other words, a profile is kept of each house, and each house receives a taylored set of ads. You get different ads then your neighbor.

Well, I think to myself, have ads ever affected my buying? Yes, but with limited success. The only ads that affect me are the ones that tell me something I didn't know. Like there is a Cook-Out opening in my neighborhood (which wasn't advertised, I just drove by it). Or there is a sale at the only store that sells comfortable pants.

Ads for Cars, mattresses, soft-drinks, ebusinesses, banks, ads for the TV station I'm watching, ads for Cable channels I don't get, ads for the sensationalized 10 o'clock news, these things don't make a difference to me. Just because I see ads for Lowe's Foods doesn't mean I'll start shopping there. I tried it once when it opened, and I didn't like it. What good is an ad going to do?

When I need to buy something (like a car) I'll look into what car I can afford that does what I need and will keep doing it for the next twenty years. The ad that tries to sell a lifestyle with some little car isn't going to change my mind in the slightest. Yes, I love the Audi TT. I've loved it since I came across an article about it in a trade mag, long before I saw an ad. But guess what, I will never own a two seater. I will always own a wagon (now if I could get an Impreza Outback Sport with a turbo, or a Diamante V-6 with a turbo, then we are in business). But ads won't affect anything.

Anyway... ads must affect someone somewhere, or else they wouldn't run them. So I say we need to find that guy who is so impressionable and get rid of him so the rest of us can not be bothered by ads.