Comment by slumberlust
12 hours ago
This mythical world where you are 'immune' to ads doesn't exist. You are just as susceptible to ads as the next human.
12 hours ago
This mythical world where you are 'immune' to ads doesn't exist. You are just as susceptible to ads as the next human.
Says who? What's the proof?
Last time I asked someone that (over a decade ago), the answer I got was that ad companies wouldn't spend millions of dollars on their ad campaigns if they didn't have proof of effectiveness. Sure, okay, that's good evidence that the ad campaigns are effective at getting some people to buy the product. But what's the evidence that I, personally, am influenced by ads? Rather than "many people are influenced by ads, don't think you're immune"?
Especially because I, personally, actively avoid advertising. I block it on the Internet, I avoid watching live TV and instead buy (or check out from the library) DVDs of shows I'm interested in... And the billboards on the highway are mostly for services I don't need (like injury lawyers) so I have almost never bought something because I saw it advertised on a billboard. The only exceptions are the ones where the billboard said "(name of restaurant) 10 miles ahead" and I thought "Oh good, I had been hoping to find exactly that restaurant, I'll pull over in 10 miles". But I was already looking for that product, the billboard ad just helped me find it.
Not to mention that if all ads were like that — "Hey, our restaurant is at exit 183, we do really good fajitas" — I would be far, FAR less annoyed by advertising. If that was the only kind of ads you saw on the Internet, I might not have sought out adblockers in the first place.
> I was already looking for that product, the billboard ad just helped me find it.
that is what ad-infested society does to everyone… everything you end up spending money on you sure think you were going to already :) you sound here exactly like my wife does when she gets pulled in bu an ad - “oh we really needed new curtains and these just came across the billboard, the ones we have are like 7 weeks old…”
> that is what ad-infested society does to everyone… you end up spending money on you sure think you were going to already
Your followup example of this is an impulse buy that happened adjacent to ad exposure. For that particular confluence, your theory could bear out.
But I'm not sure folks do that with any regularity. And for folks who rarely impulse buy or don't see/hear ads in spaces they control - I don't think they run into it.
Give me a little credit for knowing my own mind, please. I meant exactly what I wrote.
Edit: I mean, yes, some people do think they came up with the idea that was just suggested to them. Stage magicians have used suggestion tricks for years. But part of my point is that billboards that simply remind you that a product exist, and your own preexisting desires then make you want to buy it, are the form of advertising I am least annoyed by. Even people susceptible to ads had some kind of preexisting desire for the product (I really don't like those curtains, I know we only bought them two months ago but I'm having buyer's remorse, I want something else, oh look, curtains on sale!) or else the ad wouldn't work. I mean, if I know I don't have psoriasis then I won't care about psoriasis medication ads in the slightest. But if I suspect I have psoriasis (maybe I do have it, or maybe I'm a hypochondriac) then the ads will actually have a chance of influencing me.
Thing is, as far as I myself am concerned, I'm a pretty content guy. What I want is more good books to read, more good open-source software to be created, and to be able to enjoy time with my wife and kids. Almost none of which are desires that will make me susceptible to most ads. (Though if the ad was "Hey, Lois Bujold has a new book series out!" then yes, I'd be susceptible to that ad. But again, pre-existing desire: Bujold has only written two books out of her entire oeuvre that I've disliked. A much higher like-to-dislike ratio than most authors).
But by what metrics?
Metric implies there is some way to objectively measure it. I'm not sure if that's true.
But almost everyone thinks the same as you do, and yet ads are huge business. How are you affected? I don't know, but my first guess is brand perception, regardless of your self-diagnosis. If a company is advertising a certain time-limited sale, some of their value will come from conversions taking that offer. But some, maybe most, is the brand impression that people get over time. Think "I never heard of that" vs "Oh yeah, I've seen that somewhere".