Why are advertisers so darn sneaky these days? Seth Godin surely wants to know in his recent post It’s no wonder they don’t trust us. Advertisers seem to constantly trying to hoodwink us into missing a radio button or check box that will result in a new browser toolbar or membership in an opt-out email list.

It isn’t nefarious, though, it is just the result of lots and lots of marketers trying out new tactics to see what works, and apparently sneaky does work — for now.  That said, it is building up a lot hostility from us, the users.

What works is what people are doing on radio, especially AM radio, which is to make the sponsors, advertisers, and ads 1) completely relevant to the programming and what the listener (and the host) would want and 2) let the listener know that this quality programming is available (for free) because of the corporate underwriters.

Seth Godin is a rockstar.  Again I say it. While my friends are amused and frustrated by my constant obsession with “maximizing monetization,” I am an amateur compared to most firms and sites that are constantly “bundling” up browser tool bars and opt-out email lists and anti-virus software and pop-ups and pop-unders — even when installing a new PC, as Godin experienced and shares with us in It’s no wonder they don’t trust us.

The digital world, even the high end brands, has become a sleazy carnival, complete with hawkers, barkers and a bearded lady. By the time someone actually gets to your site, they’ve been conned, popped up, popped under and upsold so many times they really have no choice but to be skeptical.

Every since advertising embraced “psychology” in the 50s and 60s, they entire industry just assumed we hated ads — we never hated ads, we hate ad men.  Anyway, with advertising psychology and neural linguistic programming (NLP) there was a sudden focus on the subconscious and our lack of ever-vigilance.

I am a huge fan of radio shows of the 30s and 40s — they’re all straight shooters.  The only reason why people are no longer impressed is twofold: they seemed to be always promoting cigarettes and because we consider ourselves more modern and sophisticated — and these old corporate-sponsored variety shows just seem too unsophisticated.

Well, I think people could use a little straight-shooting in 2010 and I am hoping that advertising and financial under-writing and advertising and bundling becomes more transparent, more opt-in, and more clear as to why all of this monetization indeeds need to be done — and the answer is generally, “so that we can make this less expensive — or free — for you, the user,” which I think is a fair-enough reason.