Defense Against the Dark Arts: How to Protect Yourself From Online Advertising

It's no secret that advertising and marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry, so it should come as no surprise that they spend billions of dollars a year to get you to buy their products.

What is surprising though is how they get you to buy their products. This itself is a billion dollar industry too. Marketing firms know exactly what color and shape a pill must be in order to appeal to the people who it is designed for. If I said Viagra I bet an image comes to mind ( the pill I mean!!) how about if I said Tylenol or Nyquil Daytime?

Marketing firms and even behaviorists conduct human experiments all the time! For example they conducted an experiment in liquor stores; they concluded that if French music is played to people in the wine section, people buy more French wine. If German music is played in the beer section people tended to buy German beer over other beers. I can go on all day about experiments like this. I won't, the point is....I could.

We as a population are already desensitized to advertising and it is getting worse. Back in the day of radio you maybe got 1 or 2 commercials in a 30 minute period. Now you are lucky to watch a 10 minute YouTube video without at least 2 - 3 ads