Surface Knowledge
Oct 30th, 2007 by Nut
I mentioned this before but now I wanted to really flesh it out.
I was watching TV the other day and an ad came up, I think it was for some financial service, and then it hit me like a wave that a lot of the current ads and articles I’ve seen lately are taking an oblique angle and informing people in order to take their money (ETFs in a retirement fund, Flexible Spending Accounts, and so on).
Trent over at The Simple Dollar writes about the perils of advertising all the time, and I’m not here to do that since I’m looking to eventually get into the field.
Most ads tell you just enough to keep you stupid so you don’t know enough of the product to ask questions. The smart shopper sees an ad for something new, is intrigued, then goes online to investigate which brand of the product is better and has more value.
Advertising becomes an awakening or exposure to new things instead of a strict sales pitch. But most people aren’t smart shoppers, and that means that an ad for “Ishares ETFs” seems like a great idea: it’s something relatively new, it’s diversified, it’s “tax efficient” (that’s all the ad says), and everyone is talking about them.
The smart shopper goes online and finds out that, yes, they do have advantages like zeroing in on very specific markets and that the function like a stock. But when you start to see ads and magazine articles for ETFs in your retirement account, you know you’re being pitched.
The internet has drastically changed the power advertisers have. In a few seconds we can go onto blogs (like the ones on the right), forums, and FAQs to find out the real story behind the claims ads make.
We can break through the surface knowledge and find out what the reality is.
The thing is, we have to take action for it to work out in our favor. If, like most people, we remain passive and just take ads’ word for what they’re saying, we become vulnerable to lots of stupid purchases.
[...] the surface version of a deeper, very intricate [...]
[...] the surface version of a deeper, very intricate [...]