Comment by famouswaffles

>I’ve never really understood why, e.g. Pepsi and Coke spend so much on advertising

When was the last time you saw an ad for something non digital and you stopped everything and bought it or even made concrete plans to do so later ? Probably almost never right ? So why still so many ads ? More importantly, why is it still so profitable ?

Because much of the impact of advertising is sub conscious imprint rather than conscious action. Have you ever been in a grocery store and you needed to get something and picked a "random" brand ? Yeah, that choice may not have been so random after all. Or perhaps you're sitting at home or work and have a sudden seemingly unprompted craving for <insert food place>. Yeah, maybe not so unprompted.