”In fact, the foundation of modern-day marketing and advertising is based on psychoanalysis and being able to anticipate or manufacture the dreams and fantasies of an audience.”

What I find interesting about modern marketing is its absolute failure in this regard. Classic marketing is about canvassing your audience. Not every driver that passes a billboard will be interested in the advert but you’re hedging your bets that by the 50th drive by this month it will have piqued some interest.

At the same time it tends to be predictive. If I’m reading a photography magazine I am probably interested in adverts for tripods or rechargeable batteries.

Web marketing is after-the-fact. It takes your browsing history and then aims adverts at you. This quickly falls apart however when after looking at a refurbished phone website you get nothing but adverts for the same site on web pages and YouTube for a week.

I know the website exists: I was already there!