The Persuaders Questions

• "The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?
• I think there is far too much advertising, overwhelming potential customers when they are trying to shop, watch TV, even just going for a drive. I think that many companies feel that they need to do this in order to get a leg up on the competitors, but in fact the overabundance of advertising has the opposite effect. I feel like people today have become almost desensitized to advertising; we've gotten so used to it that nothing really affects us anymore, unless it's in a negative way, like annoyance. Because there is so much of it, advertising doesn't have the impact that it used to have maybe 20 to 30 years ago.
  
  
• What surprised you in the descriptions of how much demographic information marketers have about potential customers? What kinds of information would you be willing to share about yourself or your family in order to: enter a contest? Get a discount? Get online? Get a cell phone? Use a credit card? Would you be willing to reveal your name, address and phone number? What music you listen to or your favorite snacks? How much you earn? What medications people in your family take? What kinds of information would you want to keep private and why?
• It alarmed me a little bit to realize just how much information can be learned about you from the sites you visit, your apparent interests, etc and that this information is used to advertise to the type of person you are assumed to be. I personally hate giving out information because there are so many untrustworthy sites out there, I'm afraid of spam and viruses hurting my computer. I tend to only give out credit card information to websites like Amazon that I know are official sites. Also, I don't like the idea that your hobbies, interests, etc become common knowledge to advertisers and are then used against you.