this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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DeGoogle Yourself
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What is being counted as an ad for these things? Is branding slapped on a product an ad? If a car with a company logo drives by my window, is that an ad?
I'm in a similar ad boat to you in that I actively removed most ads from my life. I work remotely and often go a full day without going to a commercial venue. I still see a lot of things that could be classed as ads
As a random example, I just looked at my key chain. My car key has a Ford logo. The key chain was a freebie from a now long-defunct car dealership with their logo. I have a light on it sold by Battery Junction and manufactured by Titanium, with both logos prominently displayed. One of my keys was cut by a local locksmith with their name engraved on it. This could be considered as exposing me to 5 separate ads just on my key chain
To get a figure in the thousands, they probably have a very inclusive definition of an ad. I'm sure we're exposed to more ads than we realize
Seeing a logo isn't an ad. It's a symbol to represent the brand but it isn't a commercial or direct business effort to get you to become a customer (buyer of, purchaser of, consumer of) that brand. It is only the placeholder for the name of the brand for quicker identification of what the company/business/product is.
This is an incredibly naïve understanding of how branding and human cognition work. To claim a corporate logo is a "neutral placeholder" is to ignore the entire multi-trillion dollar industry of marketing and the last century of psychological research.
A logo is not a "placeholder" but instead it's the visual distillation of a brand's entire propaganda campaign.
Every commercial, billboard, and sponsored post you've ever seen for that brand has worked to create a subconscious association between that symbol and a set of feelings, aspirations, or identities (Nike = "achievement", Coca Cola = "taste", Apple = "innovation/creativity", and whatever other crap). Seeing the logo fires that neural pathway without the "prerequisite" for a full ad. The commercial already happened in our heads, across years. And it still constantly does under capitalism, hence commodity fetishism is a thing.
The primary goal of all advertising is not to make you buy something right now, but to ensure their brand is the first one you think of when you have a need. A logo constantly flashing in your visual field does exactly that. It's a maintenance ad, whether deliberate or not, keeping the brand's presence active in your subconsciousness.
It is a territorial claim on mental space, and by arguing that their symbols have a right to exist in our public and digital spaces "just for identification," corporations are claiming a right to permanent, free real estate in our minds.
It's almost like calling a national flag of any country "just a piece of colored cloth" because it ignores the immense weight of symbolic meaning, cultural conditioning, and ideological power that whatever given symbol carries. In this case, it's a flag that flies not for a nation or people but for the empire of capital. Even if it was a defunct company, it still once served this purpose, even if now "retired."