Feb 26th, 2008
Frugality in Practice: Avoiding Advertising
Advertising in America is so commonplace that in many ways we’re numb to it, yet it still exists. We’ve been using ReplayTV and Tivo for a long time to skip ads (although, in a bizarre opposite reality for a few hours a year, many people watch the Super Bowl -for- the ads). How effective they actually are is hard to say, but advertising is big business still and moving into new arenas, including on the Web.
Newspapers, magazines, direct mail, television, radio, and now podcasts, blogs, search engines, and whatever else. The whole goal of advertising is to get people to spend more money. Advertisers don’t know a lot about what ads are more effective than others, but they do know that if you put an ad in front of more eyeballs, you have a better chance of it actually doing something than if it’s in front of no one, so the more popular a site/magazine/television program is, the more likely it is that advertisers want their products on it.
What we do know is that if we see advertising, we are more likely to buy. I wouldn’t have pulled up Costco.com to look at Nikon DSLRs if I hadn’t gotten a Costco coupon book last week, for instance, and I wouldn’t have almost placed an order at Performance this past week if I hadn’t gotten a piece of bacn from performancebike.com. So there’s at least some anecdotal evidence that advertising in whatever form works, at least a little.
The best way to deal with advertising is along the lines of the advice given by AA to drinkers: if you don’t want to slip, don’t go where it’s slippery. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my financial status has improved the farther away I’ve gotten from listening to the radio, watching television, and reading the newspaper. But advertising is still everywhere: on my computer screen, on podcasts, on t shirts, on bulletin boards, on shopping bags–in fact, they’re on this very blog! Advertisers will try to figure out more and more ways to get their products in front of eyeballs, and they will be successful. Unless you’re a hermit, you’re going to be exposed, and even then, a trip to your P.O. box will result in ads being in front of you.
So besides reducing the inputs in your life, a strong will is necessary; all those tricks personal finance bloggers preach, like waiting three months or asking yourself if you really need this or what the worst thing that could happen if you get it (or don’t get it) is… those will help, but ultimately it’s you and your pocketbook. Avoiding advertising can help, no question. But to really make things work requires a strong will, and a plan, and every trick in the book you have to help you follow that plan.
