Comment by ChrisMarshallNY

I suspect this proposal wouldn’t be met well. Ignore the pachyderm in the shared living space (all the lovely money people make from advertising), but defining “what’s an ad” gets sticky.

For example, highly relevant PSAs and warnings could be considered “ads.” They can be every bit as obnoxious as “penis pill” ads, but they convey information that may be of life and death importance.

The placards outside professional offices are ads; possibly the oldest form of advertising.

In-store signage are ads, and can cost sellers a lot of money.

You could argue that “shelf-stackers,” and “endcap displays” employed by supermarkets, are a form of advertising.

Sales people rely on personal relationships, and get quite skilled at making every conversation they have, into a sales pitch (which can get annoying).

Promotion is a very complex system, and often goes far beyond simple signage. For many businesses, it’s a matter of life and death.

People that run businesses probably can’t live without them, and are willing to pay a pretty penny for ads.

One thing that might be relevant, are “ad books,” like the old-fashioned Yellow Pages, “pennysaver” papers, or the “brand books,” used by designers. These are ads, but gathered into a place where they are expected, and actively sought out.

In the last century, we often called variants of these, “catalogs.”