Ad Nauseam

I've decided to have a "column" of posts under the tag of "ad nauseam." The motivation behind the column is to analyze and/or criticize the modern world of marketing. Advertisements are becoming the most ubiquitous things on the planet, hence the label. It is essentially impossible to go through a full day without encountering some form of branding or advertisement (if you have please let me know). Email alone is over 90% spam. Google would not be in business without ad revenue (98.91% of all its revenue in 2007), and that goes for any other web businesses that rely on AdSense-like programs. Whether we like it or not advertising has an enormous impact on our lives. 

With so much money riding on the marketing industry, I started wondering why there could be so many awful advertisements out there. I mean, people are being paid to make commercials that are purposely difficult to unstick from your head. It's amazing that such a large industry can exist with so little regulation. Marketer's are allowed to retrieve your personal information to make home phone calls, blast your cell phone with text message ads, and even sell it to the highest bidder. The only rule that is enforced, as far as I can tell, is the prohibition of false advertising (but even that rule gets bent every once in a while). So here is a column that will try to comment on the role of advertising in our lives and try to understand the commercialization phenomenon.

-David

P.S. If you have any ads you are particularly critical of, send them my way and I will do my best to give my two cents.

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