Adversarial Advertisements

Sep 27

12 min read

Updated: Oct 12

I cannot overstate how much I abhor advertisements. We’re not supposed to hate. But I truly hate them. Beyond being interruptive and condescending, they’re dishonest. I don’t want to be lied to by every sound and image constantly pressed against me.

What happens to a culture’s sense of honesty when it is lied to continuously without relief?

Advertisements are Ubiquitous

In the United States, the average person is exposed to thousands of advertisements daily:

On gas pumps
Everywhere on the Internet
Between movie trailers in theaters
In television shows and on the radio
At the bottom of ChatGPT’s responses
On billboards, buses, and store displays
In TV streaming services (Netflix, Prime, and so on)
On the displays of newer, high-end refrigerators and even on the dashboards of EVs
On airline flights, when trapped passengers are forced to listen to lengthy advertisements for airline flight memberships

If you still need convincing, see this video.

Watching movie trailers in theaters was a long-standing tradition for me. But now, with commercials stuffed between them, the experience is spoiled. We can get to the movie theater 30 minutes late and still catch the beginning of the show.

Decades ago, I remember watching movies on commercial TV until the commercials became so disruptive that I would turn off the TV, walk to Blockbuster Video, pay to rent the very same movies I was trying to watch on TV, walk back home, and watch them on my Blu-ray player without interruption, happy to have paid the rental fee.

Repulsion

Advertisements make me detest the products they peddle. I have no interest in ever buying Tide laundry detergent or Crest toothpaste. Conversely, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a commercial for Walmart or Amazon, where I buy most of my goods.

Some of our favorite local restaurants are El Molinito, China Combo Thai Cuisine, Filiberto's, Taste of India, Harvest, Longhorn Steakhouse, Dove M Chinese Bistro, Tio Ben’s Mexican Grill, and Barro’s Pizza. We love them, and I’ve never seen an advertisement for any of them.

What if I want to purchase an automobile? We seek our friends' opinions until we reach a consensus. We currently own two Toyota vehicles of different models, chosen mostly based on the advice of those around us.

I own exactly one firearm. I purchased it after speaking with as many police officers as I could find and listening to the opinions of my friends who own firearms.

All my sundry purchases are no-name brands, and they serve me exceptionally well. All advertising does for me is tell me which products to avoid in the grocery store.

What if I need a home repair? It’s back to my friends. We also seek advice from our local Facebook group.

Where is the cleverness and entertainment value?

If they’d make commercials entertaining instead of infantile, they wouldn’t be as much of a problem for me. I know commercials can be delightful because I’ve made a list of them here. I promise you’ll enjoy them.

Don’t get me wrong

I’m not saying that advertising should be illegal. It must be true that ads work on some people. I am not one of them.

We recently started paying an additional $5 per month to Amazon Prime Video to avoid seeing commercials on that streaming service. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent! Now that we’ve gotten used to no commercials on Prime, we find shows on Netflix unwatchable because of commercial interruptions.

Want a better TV experience? Fire Netflix and pay the money you just saved to Amazon.

I want you to know my entire website (www.jjrlore.com), with over 130 posts, has zero advertisements. And it never will. This is because I care about my fans and don’t want to drive them away.

The Invention of Lying

In 2009, Ricky Gervais produced a clever movie called The Invention of Lying, in which no one in the world has the ability or even the thought of being dishonest. The concept of deceit, either by commission or omission, had never entered humanity's mind. People cannot hold back their every thought.

The movie features a TV commercial for a can of Coca-Cola. An announcer, standing next to a table on which the can is placed, says the following:

HI. I’m Bob. I’m the spokesperson for the Coca-Cola Company. I’m here today to ask you to continue buying Coke. Sure, you’ve been drinking it for years, and if you still enjoy it, I’d like to remind you to buy it again sometime soon. It’s basically just brown sugar water.

We haven’t changed the ingredients much lately, so there’s nothing new I can tell you about that. We’ve changed the can around a little bit. See, the colors are different there [he motions to the can], and we’ve added a polar bear so the kids like us.

Coke is very high in sugar, and like any high-powered soda, it can lead to obesity in children and adults who don’t sustain a healthy diet.

And that’s it. It’s Coke. It’s very famous. Everyone knows it. And I’m Bob.

I work for Coca-Cola, and I’m asking you not to stop buying Coke.

What a delightful commercial! I love it. I wish they were all that way.

Destructive?

Occasionally, one of my coworkers tells me the most outrageous things. What amazes me is that most of his comments turn out to be true. One of his most recent statements to me was,

“Advertising has destroyed society.”

After dismissing the thought, I did some research and learned that, once again, he is correct. Advertising isn’t just obnoxious and irrelevant. It’s destructive.

Anyone who has followed up on the claims in the thousands of advertisements we encounter every day will realize that most are false or severely misleading.

There’s a psychological disorder called “cognitive dissonance,” which occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes at the same time, or when a person’s actions clash with his or her beliefs.

No one wants to feel conflict within themselves, so people justify or rationalize until their thoughts and feelings align. For example, say to themselves,

I’m right to believe such-and-such

because [fill in reason here.]

Regarding advertising, no one wants to believe they’re being lied to. Therefore, one of the following must be true:

The messages around me aren’t actually lies.
Everyone lies. So what?
What’s a lie, anyway?

Advertising puts deceit into the same category as inflation and traffic congestion. It’s just something to get used to in ordinary life.

Advertisements place dishonesty

square in the middle of society.

I recall the first time a major pop duo was caught lip-syncing in front of a live audience. That was a big deal back in 1989. Now most pop groups do it routinely because the public prefers the perfect sound over what’s genuine. What does that tell you?

This has occurred across our culture. Public figures are to look and sound good. It is all that matters to most people. The public is no longer concerned about honesty.

Effect on political speech

Most political speech is essentially advertising for one candidate or policy over another. Now that the public has accepted dishonesty as non-consequential, politicians and political ads can say whatever they want without question. No one cares.

I’m not a George W. Bush fan, but in 2004, Dan Rather presented documents on 60 Minutes claiming that George W. Bush lied about his military service. Later, when the documents were exposed as fakes, Dan Rather claimed that the public needed to know about them anyway. To Mr. Rather, the message mattered more than the truth. He didn’t tell the public the documents weren’t legitimate. CBS later dismissed Dan Rather.

In 2015, Peter Jennings lied about his own experiences in the Iraq War. NBC later dismissed Peter Jennings.

These two individuals never honestly apologized, instead blaming the untruths on misleading reports. The two men had lost the ability to discern truth from error.

I bring up these two examples because they’re my earliest recollections of nationally renowned journalists lying. Since then, journalistic lying has become commonplace because, as Dan Rather believed, “messaging” is what matters.

Reduction of privacy

Everyone should know by now that digital tracking of our Internet and streaming habits has given advertisers a great deal of information about us. Once we’re accustomed to advertisers knowing our intimate details, what does it matter who else knows?

No one in the government sits around watching people’s ad clicks. But advertising agencies collect enormous amounts of information about individuals that government agencies can later obtain via subpoenas and search warrants.

You may say, “I don’t have anything to hide.” That’s fine, but there used to be this thing called the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

-- 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Are we ready to let that go?

Advertising and happiness

Advertisements tell us that we are insufficient without the products they push, and that without them our lives are missing something. If you don’t believe me, watch this video or this one.

Watch this commercial. As delightful as it is, what is its message? That we’re more attractive if we drink Pepsi?

Advertising affects how we compare our looks, make-up, clothing, and automobiles to those around us. Young people today are already battling messages and images thrown at them from every angle through social media. Must they endure another dose from advertising?

Effect on the environment

Advertising promotes environmental damage by encouraging overconsumption. Why buy a car every 10-15 years when you can buy one every 2 years if you can afford it, or even if you can’t?

Economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith argue that modern corporations often use advertising not merely to inform consumers but to create wants, promoting overconsumption.

I realize that I’m different than everyone else in about 200 ways, so you may not be interested in my purchasing preferences, but I’ll tell them to you anyway:

I have purchased one hammer for my home. Only one. A very nice one that I hope will last me the rest of my life. The same goes for other household tools and appliances.
I need one car for myself, and one for my wife. After I’m retired, we may need only one car between us.
I own just enough clothing to last two weeks without doing laundry, enough clothes to fill my laundry baskets. When I’m gifted new clothes, I donate my old ones unless they’re not wearable.
I never purchase more food than we can eat without anything going to waste.

And so on through all areas of life. No advertisements are necessary.

What do we do about this?

How do we shield ourselves from the blizzard of bravado thrust upon us every minute of the day?

Here are several ideas that have given me relief. They’re not enough, but they’re all I have right now.

As I mentioned earlier, we pay an extra $5 per month to Amazon Prime Video to never see a commercial. So worth it!
We installed the Brave Internet browser on our home computers, which automatically blocks all internet ads, including those on YouTube. For free.
I have all the buttons programmed on my car radio. The minute a commercial comes on, I push the next button over to skip it. This provides only little relief, as radio stations seem to air their commercials at the same time.
Paid subscriptions for radio listening, such as SiriusXM, iHeartRadio Plus, and Radio.co/TuneIn, remove all commercials. I haven’t yet been able to talk my wife into letting me buy them.

I would pay a great deal of money to never see or hear a commercial for the rest of my life.

Advertising effects on health

Findings from the American Psychological Association and the National Institutes of Health show a link between advertising and obesity, as advertising promotes fast food, sugary drinks, and unhealthy snacks. Food industry advertising that targets children and youth has been linked to rising rates of childhood obesity.

Advertising promotes increased spending on non-essential goods, perpetuating cycles of poverty and limiting access to necessary resources like education and healthcare.

What can be done?

One solution to our oversaturation-advertising problem is for us to stop responding to advertisements. Don’t buy something just because an advertisement tells you to. If we all followed this advice, advertising would go away because advertising is expensive.

How much do companies spend on advertising? In 2025 alone,

L'Oréal: $12 billion
Procter & Gamble: $9.2 billion
Unilever: $9 billion
Nestlé: $8 billion
Samsung: $8 billion
Coca-Cola: $6 billion
T-Mobile: $3.7 billion

How less expensive would L'Oréal products be if the company didn't spend $12 billion dollars on advertising for it?

Banning advertising?

I’m not a ban-things-I-don’t-like person. There are countless things in society I wish would go away, such as tobacco products, alcoholic drinks, pornography, and the ever-growing gambling industry. Such products would vanish if people stopped purchasing them.

As ineffective as the U.S. government is at doing anything, I was impressed by the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) list of over six thousand cases it has opened to punish companies for deceptive advertising and consumer abuse. My respect for the federal government just went up a bit.

The FTC probably forced the makers of Vabysmo, a drug intended to reduce wet AMD (an eye ailment), to read a statement at the end of its TV advertisement. The following is a transcript of that statement:

“Vabysmo is an eye injection. Don’t take it if you have an infection, active eye swelling, or are allergic to it. Vabysmo could cause eye infection, retinal detachment, a temporary increase in eye pressure, an uncommon risk of heart attack or stroke, or severe swelling of blood vessels in the eye. Report changes to vision or eye pain to your doctor or retina specialist right away.”

Who would take that medicine after hearing such a warning?

Let’s all stop responding to advertising. If we all do this, the big marketing bullies will leave us alone and go elsewhere.

Alternatives to advertising

Instead of banning advertising, we can change our advertising models from a “persuasion-and-attention-capture” model to a “search-reputation-and-standards” model.

Or simply,

Instead of the advertising going to the consumer,

the consumer goes to the advertiser.

This is also called organic or informative advertising.

How can this different kind of advertising work?

It already works on YouTube through product reviews and tutorials. Consumers are more likely to buy a product after they’ve gone online looking for it than from ads pushed to them.

When I’m interested in purchasing a car, repairing my roof, or finding a landscaper, I can go online and search for those goods and services. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear about them.

This, by the way, is how most people feel.

A Gartner marketing survey in 2025 found that 81% of consumers tune out ads. The survey also found that 52% of adult consumers actively block ads using ad blockers or other software.

What happens when you go to your TV and open Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV+, or any other streaming service? The first thing you’ll see is a list of TV shows and movies the streaming service believes you’ll like. This is how it should work. The consumer seeks information from the producer.

For the “search-reputation-and-standards” model to work, we’ll need:

Better and more thorough search engines
Better and more thorough AI chat
Better and more instructive online videos by influencers, reviewers, subject matter experts, and regular users
Better product standards
Better emphasis on community involvement (person-to-person)
Better online forums

We would need to have more Informational advertising:

"This product exists; here are its features and price."

and less Persuasive advertising:

"This product promises greater status,

attractiveness, and happiness."

Imagine your life in such a scenario. Let’s say you need to purchase a new kitchen blender. What would you do? You’d get online and:

Search for products
Read comparisons
Read customer reviews
Watch demonstration videos
Compare prices
Talk to your friends
Purchase

How would websites like YouTube, Google, and Amazon make money with fewer (or zero) advertisements? Such websites would be paid by the companies promoting their goods and services through informational/instructional videos and website articles.

The way it works now:

YouTube, Google, and Amazon get paid

when customers click on advertisements

The way it works with organic advertising:

YouTube, Google, and Amazon get paid by sellers

when customers watch sellers’ product informational videos.

This way, when i want to, I can watch all the videos I want that tout Mazda cars, whether produced by Mazda or by influencers, reviewers, and others who make tutorials or other videos or run websites that portray Mazda vehicles. Thus,

Companies that provide goods and services still pay YouTube, Google, and Amazon to tout their wares.
Internet influencers, reviewers, and so on are still paid by companies selling goods and services.
Buyers search for videos and websites whenever they need information on goods and services.
Buyers don’t see advertisements.

Customers search for the information they need about the products they want. Otherwise, they’re not interested in buying, and advertisements would be useless anyway.

What good would come of this change?

Purchasing decisions would become more deliberate and slower
Brand trust would increase for authentic creators
Impulse buying would drop

What better way could there be to help save the world by reducing overconsumption and promoting healthier lives by eating less junk food?

Economists who have promoted such advertising alternatives include George Stigler in his publication, “The Economics of Information,” and Richard Nelson in his publication on “informative advertising.”

But what about new products?

What happens when the first “mosquito auto-laser turret” becomes marketable and is available for purchase? How would anyone know to search for one?

Chances are high that after the first person buys one for $150 and creates a video on YouTube showing how well it works, that video will go viral, and 80 million consumers in the U.S. will want one the next day.

Advertising dollars spent: Zero.

I’ll be one of the millions of consumers happily purchasing one without ever seeing an advertisement.

Why doesn’t this happen?

Several reasons explain why this change isn’t happening as quickly as we’d like:

Millions of highly paid marketing experts would lose their jobs. Millions of new marketing experts schooled in the new system would be hired.
“Marketing” would be in the hands of video and podcast influencers, explainers, presenters, and ordinary users, not advertising moguls.
Corporations would struggle to trust the effectiveness of “organic” and “informational” advertising methodologies.

In other words: Fear of change.

I’m not afraid of not seeing 4,000 advertisements a day, and neither are you.