site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I often find myself wondering why brands that already have complete saturation in terms of awareness and a dominant position in their respective market bother with ubiquitous marketing campaigns.

Coca Cola, for example, is so utterly ingrained in U.S. (and other country's) cultures that they could basically run a 3 second ad with the logo that said "You know who we are." and it'd have just as much impact as some Oscar-quality short film.

I do assume that marketing successes are measured on a power-law standard. Most ad campaigns won't be particularly successful, but sometimes you get one that takes off and produces crazy outsized visibility and cements the brand in the public culture for years to come.

So marketing budgets are devoted to hunting for that one big hit, even if most of the money is 'wasted' in the meantime.

I am partial to the theory that advertising works by establishing a shared understanding of what consuming the product signals to others. It explains many puzzling behaviours, e.g. why Coca Cola would bother with ads – they want to steer how other people will percieve you when consuming their product, not necessarily create awareness or an immediate desire.

In that framework, the Mulvaney backlash makes perfect sense; the blog post I linked even talks about how brands generally don't have different messaging on different platforms since it would be directly counterproductive to the idea that you want to establish a common product image. InBev didn't understand it, tried different messaging for different groups, and is now suffering the consequences.

deleted

Because companies that get to the size of Coca-Cola are very risk averse. They have a good thing going and don't want to ruin it. And the prevailing (though mistaken) sentiment in business is that advertising is basically a magic wand to increase sales, no matter the circumstances. Combine those two things, and you get companies like Coca-Cola wasting money on advertising because they don't want to deviate from the popular wisdom and risk negative effects. It's incredibly stupid, but who is going to stick their neck out by cancelling all the ads for a quarter or two to prove that the expenditure is wasted? It's like the old saying about "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

Because companies that get to the size of Coca-Cola are very risk averse.

I mean, I hear what you are saying. But that makes it all the more bizarre when they run advertising that tells me I'm a piece of shit, this message brought to you by Coca-Cola (or Gillette, or Miller Lite, or Bud Lite, or Disney, etc). I don't see risk averse behavior there.

Pepsi had the Kendall Jenner ad that had a bit of a fuss raised but it wasn't really spitting in the face of their consumers, either, and seems to have faded without significant, if any, impact.

Pepsi has long found social justice adjacent marketing to be a way to pull share from the monster Coke. They were featuring endorcements from Civil Rights leaders like Ralph Bunchie in their ads decades ago.

2rafa is correct. People need to be reminded when it comes to consumable products, even if initial brand awareness has already reached complete saturation. It's happened to me multiple times where I'll see a commercial for Wendy's or something and I'll think "you know what? That sounds pretty good. I'm getting Wendy's today."

This would work if they were advertising some new or returning product that I wasn't aware of previously.

And with fast food, there's a lot more aggressive competition for consumer dollars than I'd say there is with Coca Cola. Getting someone to pick Burger King over Taco Bell over Chik-Fil-A does actually involve messing with their preferences in that instant, I'd guess.

Not to say there's not competition in the beverage sector, but Coke's presence there is fundamentally secure. At least, secure in a way that can't be easily unseated by a competing marketing campaign.

I'm more surprised by advertisements for Toilet Paper and such other everyday items where there's minimal variability between the products. Is there enough spare money to be seized by keeping a particular brand of shit tickets on people's minds?

I’d guess

Getting someone to pick Taco Bell over Chikfila, ceteris paribus, is clearly a deeply intrusive warping of preferences.

Yeah, but you can't get Chik-Fil-A on Sundays.

I'm about ambivalent between the two options, probably slightly in favor of taco bell. But if someone was talking up Chick-fil-A it would probably change my mind.

I'm at Chick-fil-A once a week or so, I don't remember the last time I was at Taco Bell. Does dine-in vs drive through change your preference?

I was thinking purely about the food. If someone laid down taco bell and chick-fil-a in front of me it would depend on what I was in the mood for.

The experience itself would be a clear win for taco bell. The long lines at chick-fil-a has always been a turnoff for me. I'm fine with either drive through or dine-in.

Chicken taste ok to me, but I like the taste of beef. So Chick-fil-a is serving a good version of food I don't like that much, and taco bell is serving a mediocre version of a food I do like.

Chick-fil-a has significantly improved their line experience, for what it’s worth. I think it was when they redesigned drive-thru infrastructure to run double lanes, but it might have just been a training update.

And I'm not so sure.

Coke is in movie theaters, restaurants, convenience stores, and vending machines everywhere. Just because they're not advertising does not mean that they're invisible.

Pepsi might gain a percentage point or two but I literally have a hard time imagining a longtime Coke drinker swapping to Pepsi under those circumstances.

Coca Cola's advertising isn't to get you to recognize Coca Cola, it's to specifically make you want Coca Cola at that specific moment. That's why they invest so heavily in billboard ads, most of their advertising is designed to make you think 'hey, I'm thirsty, I'll go get a Coke right now' (or at least the next time you pass a store).

Is it? Everybody I know who drinks soda is a habitual soda drinker. The same way I start my morning with coffee, they slam a Coke. We'd go out for lunch from the office, and they'd order a Coke. If the person said they only had Pepsi, they'd sigh and begrudgingly have a Pepsi instead.

I mean I guess you have to hook them into that habit at some point. But I've never known anyone in my entire life who sporadically consumed Coke when an advertisement finally got to them. In much the same way as I've never seen a smoker who needed an ad to compel them to smoke.

The moms who buy Coke for their kids know it's bad for them. They don't buy it because of the ads. They buy it because their shitty kids can't act right unless they get what they want, and what they want is a Coke.

This actually makes me wonder, how much of Coke's ad budget is directed at children. That would make a ton of sense.

Coca Cola's advertising isn't to get you to recognize Coca Cola, it's to specifically make you want Coca Cola at that specific moment.

This makes absolute sense to me if I'm currently, e.g. sitting down in a movie theater and they want to make sure I am reminded of how thirsty I am and that the refreshment stand serves cold Coke products.

But beyond that, I'm surely questioning whether ubiquitous coke ads are 'worth' the 5% increase in the chance of me buying a coke that day. I don't pretend to know better than the company itself, but do we honestly believe that is Coca-Cola stopped actively advertising altogether for a month or more that there'd be a substantial drop in sales?

I'm not sure I do.

Coke ads make perfect sense to me, for just that reason; television (and streaming, on the cheap plans) car ads are what I find confusing. I'll spend a dollar on one drink vs another because of a whim, but if I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars then I'm doing research for months first, and that's the time to hit me with a few targeted banner ads to make sure I don't forget a particular car model on my list to investigate. Is it just that TV ads are still the only good place to put video, and the "look at our car smoothly whooshing through windy mountain roads" video genre is so important for building buyer interest that car companies have to put up with spending wasted impressions on vastly more numerous non-buyers?

Part of it is probably to keep an upstart from even having the option to use mass market advertising. If the slots are all taken it's tough for a new entrant to join in the market. Same reason there are 50 varieties of toothpaste it fills the asile so there's only a couple brands available.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats