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I have a hard time relating to these findings. Advertisement almost never works on me. And, the few times it does work on me, I'm actually quite glad and appr

I have a hard time relating to these findings. Advertisement almost never works on me. And, the few times it does work on me, I'm actually quite glad and appreciative because I only buy products I really want or really need. If I look at all my credit card, amazon and ebay purchases for the last several years, which i do often, i see it's just the things I need/want: gas, maintenance, groceries a few times going out to eat, etc. almost 0 merchandise, those things don't make me happier. It's pretty rare that I see an appealing advertisement (to me). but it does happen. ads don't really say much about the product. but, I do find them interesting because they say a huge amount about segments of our population: their hopes, their dreams, their perceptions, how they want to be seen, how much they care what others think, etc. it's a great case study for humanity.

dibujaron 7y ago
"Advertising doesn't work on me" is a lie that nearly everyone tells themselves. Advertisers love this. Ads rarely makes anyone rush out to go buy x out of the blue, but if someone is choosing between x product and y product, they're much more likely to pick x if has been advertised to them before. The substance of the ad is almost irrelevant; just because they've heard the name of x repeatedly before, they're much more likely to choose it.
- pascalxus 7y ago
  Your might be right about most people. (advertisers love to tell this to their CEO but they've been wrong about this before - just look at the 20 million dollar case study with Ebay and their wasted ad spend on google ads). But, it really doesn't work on me 99.9% of the time. I know because I review all my spending habits and I can clearly see 1/2 of the products I buy don't even advertise. Ever seen an ad for cucumbers or tomatoes or other real food? or rotten robbies gas station? i have no idea what label is on my clothes. etc. And even on the rare occasions when it does work, the vast majority of the ads still are completely wasted. How many times have I seen an ad for metromile, when I'm already a happy customer of theirs. their targetting must be awful. Sometimes I use the product because I'm forced to: like when sharebuilder got bought out by etrade. how many times will I see the completely useless etrade ads over my lifetime? i mean I'm already their customer (by default), so all their ad dollars are completely wasted.
  - mayniac 7y ago
    I doubt the only products you buy are cucumbers, tomatoes and gas. You've chosen your phone, laptop, car, and various other branded items. Advertising very likely played a role in your decisions there. How can you actually be sure that advertising doesn't work on you? Of course, you don't see an ad on TV for a new smart fridge and immediately jump out of your sofa, wallet in hand, to go buy it. But the key thing is that _nobody does_. That's not the point. The idea is that six months down the line when your fridge breaks irreparably and you're deciding between different brands, those ads will have an influence, and you won't realise it. People who think advertising doesn't work on them _are godsends to advertisers_. This article puts it quite well, although I don't agree with its conclusions[0]: "If you don’t believe advertising works on you, you are going to be more likely to see good advertising as something else entirely and be more receptive to it and thusly more likely to take the action I want you to take." There was a study a few months ago which found that people who think they are immune to advertising are more susceptible to it than average, but I can't find a link. It was one of the things that changed my opinion on this: I also used to think I was not susceptible to most advertising, but this is a dangerous mentality. You just don't think you're susceptible. I've come around to thinking Bill Hicks was completely right on this [1] Also with the Metromile point, that's not bad targeting. Ads are often targeted at existing users of the ads product. The point is to keep brand loyalty and limit buyer's remorse. [0] https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe-me-then-you-are-my-favorite-demographic-ebf6b1f2541a https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
    - pascalxus 7y ago
      I'm not your typical consumer. I buy the cheapest thing of each category unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Computer: macbook pro (not because of ads but because I had to in order to develop for apple products), phone: Iphone - got it for free as a handme down from my wife. Very few of the groceries I buy have labels on them: it's all fresh fruit, veggies, things from the bulk section, almost nothing in the grocery store I've bought is advertised. I don't eat processed food or any kind of food that comes in a box or prepackaged bag. When my fridge breaks down I will buy the cheapest fridge I can find unless there's data that shows some fridges are more reliable than others. I buy maybe 2 pairs of pants per decade, and when I do buy clothes it's usually at used clothing store, and I don't pay any attention to what the label says other than the size and type of material. Brand almost never ever comes into my decision making process. that's why its so hard for me to believe. I buy the cheaper one every time unless there's overwhelming reason not to. Frankly, I don't understand how this isn't the default behaviour for everyone. The only areas where advertising works on me is on the following (when they actually give me information about products I actually want): occassionally on movies (but even then it's a small percentage ~ most of the time i get whatevers i find on fandango ~ i've even missed some movies i wanted to watch because the ads didn't reach me or I forgot), occassionally the restaurant coupons (half price), metromile, maybe banking (since that actually does require trust) . Metromile is wasting their money by retargetting me. I'll leave the second I find another insurance that's cheaper - I have absolutely 0 brand loyalty for almost everything. If anything, they're just reminding me to check around for cheaper services that may pop up. Utility bills -> no choice therefore ads don't matter. Housing -> found on zillow . Zillow itself, someone told me about it (not advertisement). phone plan - i really had to hunt to find usmobile - 8$/month for 100 minutes, 100 messages. I can't even imagine how much money the telecom industry has squandered on me without any effect at all. ISP - At&t hits me ads all the time, and everytime I'm just reminded about how evil they are and I check around to see if there's any other better broadband providers besides the one I'm using right now. so their ads are actually having the opposite of the desired effect, same with comcast. The reason all these ads don't affect me is because they all appeal to Emotion and unverifiable information. And that's not how I generally make my decisions. For example, when at&t says they have the best network, that's completely useless to me because I can't verify that it's true, or at least it's hard to do so. Because most ads appeal based on emotion and I don't use emotion to make my buying decisions, it means they simply don't work.
- asdff 7y ago
  I think there is a segment of the population that aren't consumers in the traditional sense. For instance, my computer is an 8 year old macbook, and my phone is a 4 year old iphone. My headphones are 5 years old with a wire, and will be just as good at producing sound 50 years from now. I'm not pining for an upgrade in any of these cases. When I needed more performance for my use cases, I bought the cheapest 8gb sticks of ram and SSD I could find, and did the installation and reimaging myself. Clothing wise, I only replace my pants when they threadbare at the knees, end up with a plethora of free t shirts, and get the odd sweatshirt at uniqlo every couple of years because it's cheap and decently durable. I bought my formal wear a decade ago and I haven't gotten any fatter, so I'm not hurting for a new suit every couple of years. Foodwise, I only buy store brand because it's the same stuff but cheaper due to a lack of a marketing budget, and although I do order takeout it's not like I was wooed by the targeted advert for the local indian place—I was wooed by seeing them throwing the naan at the back of the tandoori right in the restaurant. I always opt for pickup instead of app based delivery which can cost more than the entree. In college, I used my highschool beater to get groceries, these days I use public transport and don't own a car. But if I did have a use for a car, I'd go with another beater over spending multiples more to go between the exact same points A and B in the exact same time using about the same amount of gas. Never wrapped my head around why people even buy new cars, unless handsfree bluetooth audio really is worth dropping another 10 grand or more. Other than that, I only really spend money on experiences, not material goods. I guess you could say then that I'm not immune to an event ad, like if my favorite musician comes to town, but that's really a notice rather than the modern interpretation of advertisement. I see an ad for some blue tint glasses or a subscription box for hatchets and leather products, I think, 'what the hell is the point?' Based on other comments in this thread, I get the sense that I'm not alone with this mentality.
  - ollifi 7y ago
    I like your post and think this is common attitude towards consumption among some techies, but I find it interesting that laptop brand still gets mentioned.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
There's a concept in the marketing world named "reminder advertising." Forgive me if I botch some of the details, but a few decades back Coca-Cola conducted an experiment where they tracked, in excruciating detail, all coke sales in a small town for a month. Then they turned all the ads off. All the television ads, newspaper ads, all the signs and and all the billboards. Coke sales immediately dropped ~30%. Everyone knows what Coca-Cola is, and yet they have one of the largest advertising budgets in the world. You think that split second decision at the restaurant last week where you asked for a Coke instead of a water, a beer, or a Pepsi was of your own volition, but it very well may have been because you drove past a coke billboard on your way to work that morning, or because you saw a commercial a couple weeks ago. Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them, but human psychology is tremendously complex and chock-full of easily exploitable bugs.
- asdff 7y ago
  Or that pepsi bought up all the new ad space that month, or just de facto became the only beverage advertiser, and reaped the benefits. The real experiment would be for everyone in the beverage sector to stop advertising for a month and see what equilibrium is reached.
- pascalxus 7y ago
  but it needs to be a reminder for something you actually want. I've never purchased a coco-cola or any other soda in my entire life and never will, no matter how much they advertise to me. Now, if they advertised some nice veggies or fresh fruit that could work but how often do you see ads for that? and how much are those veggies going to cost after all that advertisement? will it be cost effective in comparison to the veggies that didn't advertise? (i'm guessing not, otherwise they'd have done it by now, right?) Ads are targeted at the masses. If most/all your interests deviate from the norm, ads won't be effective.
taeric 7y ago
The question would then be if marketing works on you. Do you know the brand of your clothes? Your computer? Sometimes, brand and make/model are very tied together. As an example, I love cherry blue switches on my keyboards. Often, though, pants are pants. And don't forget that advertising and marketing is a probabilities game. Nothing about an individual can really help understand the crowd. Even if the crowd is easy to control, at large.

dibujaron 7y ago

"Advertising doesn't work on me" is a lie that nearly everyone tells themselves. Advertisers love this. Ads rarely makes anyone rush out to go buy x out of the blue, but if someone is choosing between x product and y product, they're much more likely to pick x if has been advertised to them before. The substance of the ad is almost irrelevant; just because they've heard the name of x repeatedly before, they're much more likely to choose it.

pascalxus 7y ago
Your might be right about most people. (advertisers love to tell this to their CEO but they've been wrong about this before - just look at the 20 million dollar case study with Ebay and their wasted ad spend on google ads). But, it really doesn't work on me 99.9% of the time. I know because I review all my spending habits and I can clearly see 1/2 of the products I buy don't even advertise. Ever seen an ad for cucumbers or tomatoes or other real food? or rotten robbies gas station? i have no idea what label is on my clothes. etc. And even on the rare occasions when it does work, the vast majority of the ads still are completely wasted. How many times have I seen an ad for metromile, when I'm already a happy customer of theirs. their targetting must be awful. Sometimes I use the product because I'm forced to: like when sharebuilder got bought out by etrade. how many times will I see the completely useless etrade ads over my lifetime? i mean I'm already their customer (by default), so all their ad dollars are completely wasted.
- mayniac 7y ago
  I doubt the only products you buy are cucumbers, tomatoes and gas. You've chosen your phone, laptop, car, and various other branded items. Advertising very likely played a role in your decisions there. How can you actually be sure that advertising doesn't work on you? Of course, you don't see an ad on TV for a new smart fridge and immediately jump out of your sofa, wallet in hand, to go buy it. But the key thing is that _nobody does_. That's not the point. The idea is that six months down the line when your fridge breaks irreparably and you're deciding between different brands, those ads will have an influence, and you won't realise it. People who think advertising doesn't work on them _are godsends to advertisers_. This article puts it quite well, although I don't agree with its conclusions[0]: "If you don’t believe advertising works on you, you are going to be more likely to see good advertising as something else entirely and be more receptive to it and thusly more likely to take the action I want you to take." There was a study a few months ago which found that people who think they are immune to advertising are more susceptible to it than average, but I can't find a link. It was one of the things that changed my opinion on this: I also used to think I was not susceptible to most advertising, but this is a dangerous mentality. You just don't think you're susceptible. I've come around to thinking Bill Hicks was completely right on this [1] Also with the Metromile point, that's not bad targeting. Ads are often targeted at existing users of the ads product. The point is to keep brand loyalty and limit buyer's remorse. [0] https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe-me-then-you-are-my-favorite-demographic-ebf6b1f2541a https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
  - pascalxus 7y ago
    I'm not your typical consumer. I buy the cheapest thing of each category unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Computer: macbook pro (not because of ads but because I had to in order to develop for apple products), phone: Iphone - got it for free as a handme down from my wife. Very few of the groceries I buy have labels on them: it's all fresh fruit, veggies, things from the bulk section, almost nothing in the grocery store I've bought is advertised. I don't eat processed food or any kind of food that comes in a box or prepackaged bag. When my fridge breaks down I will buy the cheapest fridge I can find unless there's data that shows some fridges are more reliable than others. I buy maybe 2 pairs of pants per decade, and when I do buy clothes it's usually at used clothing store, and I don't pay any attention to what the label says other than the size and type of material. Brand almost never ever comes into my decision making process. that's why its so hard for me to believe. I buy the cheaper one every time unless there's overwhelming reason not to. Frankly, I don't understand how this isn't the default behaviour for everyone. The only areas where advertising works on me is on the following (when they actually give me information about products I actually want): occassionally on movies (but even then it's a small percentage ~ most of the time i get whatevers i find on fandango ~ i've even missed some movies i wanted to watch because the ads didn't reach me or I forgot), occassionally the restaurant coupons (half price), metromile, maybe banking (since that actually does require trust) . Metromile is wasting their money by retargetting me. I'll leave the second I find another insurance that's cheaper - I have absolutely 0 brand loyalty for almost everything. If anything, they're just reminding me to check around for cheaper services that may pop up. Utility bills -> no choice therefore ads don't matter. Housing -> found on zillow . Zillow itself, someone told me about it (not advertisement). phone plan - i really had to hunt to find usmobile - 8$/month for 100 minutes, 100 messages. I can't even imagine how much money the telecom industry has squandered on me without any effect at all. ISP - At&t hits me ads all the time, and everytime I'm just reminded about how evil they are and I check around to see if there's any other better broadband providers besides the one I'm using right now. so their ads are actually having the opposite of the desired effect, same with comcast. The reason all these ads don't affect me is because they all appeal to Emotion and unverifiable information. And that's not how I generally make my decisions. For example, when at&t says they have the best network, that's completely useless to me because I can't verify that it's true, or at least it's hard to do so. Because most ads appeal based on emotion and I don't use emotion to make my buying decisions, it means they simply don't work.
asdff 7y ago
I think there is a segment of the population that aren't consumers in the traditional sense. For instance, my computer is an 8 year old macbook, and my phone is a 4 year old iphone. My headphones are 5 years old with a wire, and will be just as good at producing sound 50 years from now. I'm not pining for an upgrade in any of these cases. When I needed more performance for my use cases, I bought the cheapest 8gb sticks of ram and SSD I could find, and did the installation and reimaging myself. Clothing wise, I only replace my pants when they threadbare at the knees, end up with a plethora of free t shirts, and get the odd sweatshirt at uniqlo every couple of years because it's cheap and decently durable. I bought my formal wear a decade ago and I haven't gotten any fatter, so I'm not hurting for a new suit every couple of years. Foodwise, I only buy store brand because it's the same stuff but cheaper due to a lack of a marketing budget, and although I do order takeout it's not like I was wooed by the targeted advert for the local indian place—I was wooed by seeing them throwing the naan at the back of the tandoori right in the restaurant. I always opt for pickup instead of app based delivery which can cost more than the entree. In college, I used my highschool beater to get groceries, these days I use public transport and don't own a car. But if I did have a use for a car, I'd go with another beater over spending multiples more to go between the exact same points A and B in the exact same time using about the same amount of gas. Never wrapped my head around why people even buy new cars, unless handsfree bluetooth audio really is worth dropping another 10 grand or more. Other than that, I only really spend money on experiences, not material goods. I guess you could say then that I'm not immune to an event ad, like if my favorite musician comes to town, but that's really a notice rather than the modern interpretation of advertisement. I see an ad for some blue tint glasses or a subscription box for hatchets and leather products, I think, 'what the hell is the point?' Based on other comments in this thread, I get the sense that I'm not alone with this mentality.
- ollifi 7y ago
  I like your post and think this is common attitude towards consumption among some techies, but I find it interesting that laptop brand still gets mentioned.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago

There's a concept in the marketing world named "reminder advertising." Forgive me if I botch some of the details, but a few decades back Coca-Cola conducted an experiment where they tracked, in excruciating detail, all coke sales in a small town for a month. Then they turned all the ads off. All the television ads, newspaper ads, all the signs and and all the billboards. Coke sales immediately dropped ~30%. Everyone knows what Coca-Cola is, and yet they have one of the largest advertising budgets in the world. You think that split second decision at the restaurant last week where you asked for a Coke instead of a water, a beer, or a Pepsi was of your own volition, but it very well may have been because you drove past a coke billboard on your way to work that morning, or because you saw a commercial a couple weeks ago. Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them, but human psychology is tremendously complex and chock-full of easily exploitable bugs.

asdff 7y ago
Or that pepsi bought up all the new ad space that month, or just de facto became the only beverage advertiser, and reaped the benefits. The real experiment would be for everyone in the beverage sector to stop advertising for a month and see what equilibrium is reached.
pascalxus 7y ago
but it needs to be a reminder for something you actually want. I've never purchased a coco-cola or any other soda in my entire life and never will, no matter how much they advertise to me. Now, if they advertised some nice veggies or fresh fruit that could work but how often do you see ads for that? and how much are those veggies going to cost after all that advertisement? will it be cost effective in comparison to the veggies that didn't advertise? (i'm guessing not, otherwise they'd have done it by now, right?) Ads are targeted at the masses. If most/all your interests deviate from the norm, ads won't be effective.

taeric 7y ago

The question would then be if marketing works on you. Do you know the brand of your clothes? Your computer? Sometimes, brand and make/model are very tied together. As an example, I love cherry blue switches on my keyboards. Often, though, pants are pants. And don't forget that advertising and marketing is a probabilities game. Nothing about an individual can really help understand the crowd. Even if the crowd is easy to control, at large.