Vox clamantis in deserto.

Every day I hear people in advertising prattle on about how much people hate advertising. 

They don't say people hate being yelled at.

Or people hate having their intelligence insulted.

Or people hate being baited-and-switched. Targeted and retargeted. Cookied and tracked like an escaped convict in a Southern Gothic prison movie, running through the swamps trying to throw the dogs off their scent.

No. They just say how much they hate advertising.

I'm more than a little tired of it. Mostly because I don't believe it.

I think people who say people hate advertising hate advertising themselves.

What people hate from marketing are the same things they hate in life.

Deception. Double dealing. Mealy-mouthed craptastic prevarications.

I think I probably make two or four big purchases a year. I buy a camera, or a portable air-conditioner, or some decent luggage, or every seven years or so, a new used car.

I'd love it if someone helped me with those purchases. If someone, some advertiser, helped me make an intelligent assessment of the product.

This, it seems to me, is the sort of thing that isn't done anymore.

Because the prevailing wisdom is that people hate ads and won't read them.

So we instead run ads that do virtually nothing but disseminate smiling models.

I refuse to believe that no one anymore makes a decision based on hard data.

I refuse to believe that advertising can't be useful, helpful, persuasive.