Too much advertising

 

I've had it. I feel attacked by ads. On Facebook, I block between 10 and 50 a day. Scrolling through my page I feel like the whale covered with barnacles above. Each barnacle represents an ad.

Disclaimer 1: I've worked in marketing and I know it is necessary to reach a target market. The word target is key. Whatever algorithm Facebook uses, it is mistaken in identifying me. I also know advertising pays for information we receive in various media. 

Another lifetime ago, I stopped reading Cosmopolitan because it was hard to find the the articles among the ads.

After being inundated with direct mail pieces in the 1970s, I started, whenever I ordered anything, to change my middle initial. That way I could see which company sold my name. If I didn't get any direct mail with an initial, I would order from them again. 

Disclaimer 2: I've been in charge of direct mail programs.

It seems every time I click on CNN International, I get the same ads. I can recite the voice over with them.

English ITV is clever. At the beginning of a program, there are few ads but near the climax the ads increase in frequency. British TV seems to specialize in ads for funeral plans, medical products and boat cruises. 

When visiting my daughter in Boston we developed Covid. Between the sneezing, coughing and feeling lousy, we enjoyed watching TV together and ordering lots of favorite take-outs. I commented that the programs were interrupting the constant commercials. 

I've noticed many French stations interrupt programs less but the commercial breaks are longer. I've never timed them. 

One advantage of TV ads, it gives me time to do household chores, answer a few emails, make the bed, read a book.

Most ads are uninteresting. Some are not.

I still tear up if I watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABM7izRP1bw The Clydesdale kneel at 9/11 towers for a beer commercial. I wanted to get a screen shot of the YouTube but ad pop ups made it impossible.

I also tear up seeing an elderly couple in the 1970s Bell Telephone ad "Joey called today." It was part of the "reach out and touch someone" campaign.

There was the little old lady asking "Where's the beef," and the bridegroom who reached for the Alka Seltzer when his bride talked about a marshmallow meatloaf recipe. And it is fun to sing with the Coke ad, I'd like to teach the world to sing.

However, enough is enough. I want real life not the ad fantasies being spun. I want to read and/or look at whatever without too many interruptions. I want to be a like a barnacle-free whale.