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What’s being lost in advertising

15 July

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7 min.

The Attention Tax

Let’s be honest. Nobody wakes up in the morning hoping to see an ad. We install blockers, we skip intros, we pay premiums to make them disappear. Yet, advertising is the invisible engine of the free internet. It is the reason we have free maps, free videos etc.. We don't pay with money. We pay with attention. We have unknowingly signed a contract where our eyes are the currency. We have become living billboards. Since this exchange is inevitable, it demands one thing: Dignity.

THE END OF SERENDIPITY

Advertising used to have a noble purpose. Its goal was to introduce you to things you didn't know you wanted. To show you a destination, a sound, or an aesthetic that you didn't know you needed until you saw it. It was a vehicle for the new.

Today, that magic is gone. Algorithms have replaced seduction with stalking. Instead of showing you what you might love, they show you what you have already looked at. They don't broaden your horizon; they trap you in a loop of your own past searches.

FROM ASPIRATION TO ANXIETY

When discovery dies, manipulation takes over. Modern marketing has stopped selling dreams and started selling fear. It weaponizes FOMO. It screams that you are missing out, that the offer expires in ten minutes. At its lowest point, it becomes a scam. A landscape of drop-shipped junk and fake gurus that erodes trust in the entire medium. We have traded awe for anxiety.

What's with the red? It's the chicken roaster sign. You know, it's right across my window.

THE RIGHT TO INTERRUPT

We need to rewrite the contract. If a brand is going to interrupt a user’s life, it has a moral obligation to make that interruption worth it. Do not just demand attention. Earn it. If you are going to take 30 seconds of my time, give me 30 seconds of art, humor, or insight in return. Advertising must stop being a tax on our patience and start being a contribution to our culture. Make it beautiful. Make it useful. Or don’t make it at all.

Mark Welling, Partner

Ref: Seinfeld, "The Chicken Roaster" (1996).

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