I cannot recall the last time I was swayed by an advertisement.
If anything, when I see any advertisement these days, it convinces me to dislike the product, especially when they try to be obnoxiously hip.
Grub hub dancing diverse man
Old spice ad clones
Better help pandering to lgbt in garish and obnoxious ways
Liberty mutual stupid emu
And I realize that me mentioning these proves their efficacy from a word of mouth perspective, be I alone will not be more likely to purchase these products as a result of these ads.
I’m all for equal treatment, regardless of genetic makeup and sexual orientation, but when you use that stuff as a marketing tool, it offends me. Do you think I’m an ant? Do you think that your injection of humanitarian issues is going to make me more likely to buy a fucking therapy service?
I firmly believe that it won’t .
I have pretty much stripped my online prescence of advertising through bowser extensions/paid apps/pi-hole, so it is only the subtle forms left that I have to be sceptical about.
Having to use a service that has obvious advertising is mostly just annoying because I know it’s an advertisment. It is the more subtle forms that you have to be on the lookout for.
There are definitely forms of advertising that work on me, for example the hype surrounding particular video games, reviews on the PSVR2 headset, those kinds of things - because I spent money on them. It is never the blatant advertising that you see on Instagram or television that works on me.
Advertisments are like fake boobs: you only notice and complain about them when they are badly done.
Exactly. You don’t remember the last time you were swayed, because you didn’t even realize you were being advertised to. Talking to people who are good at this is fascinating.
I have a friend, now some big-shot SEO lead at a digital agency, started at Saatchi a decade ago. She explained to me how most of the irrelevant targeted ads you see are mostly due to idiot clients, or sometimes it’s just an awareness campaign, where they place a lot of ads and see who gets hooked - they are then followed up with better targeted and tailored ad.
I’m pretty confident I would not be on Lemmy right now had someone not advertised it.
it’s most dangerous to think you’re immune. it’s subtle enough to sway anyone in ways you don’t realize.
People keep saying that but never give examples.
Btw the topic is ads. There are other forms of sneaky marketing like altering search results or placement of goods on shelves in a store, but it’s not that hard to be wary of those too.
A very simple example: advertising makes you aware of brands. Just knowing that a brand exists might be enough to influence your decision in the future. Think about it: are you more likely to choose the brand you heard about, or the brand you don’t even know exists?
I always buy the cheapest option on the shelf (in terms of food). Usually that’s the store brand for the store I am in. For electronics I usually just do a lot of research (Reddit, looking into age of the company, picture reviews and 1 star complaints) and ask friends. I’m sure that the “ads” shown in my research sway me sometimes though when I’m truly clueless about something and just have to take people’s word for it.
Sometimes, though, the people you’re trusting to be objective have been swayed by ads themselves! It’s honestly impossible IMO to be completely unaffected by ads because of that. Even if you never see an ad in your life – the people around you have.
The only times I choose a brand is based on reviews or personal experience. And I may still go against that based on price or other need.
This week I bought a
spoiler
Sandisk
SD card and a
spoiler
Kingston
card reader. That’s because all cards except this one have always failed me in some way at some point. I might have been swayed by
spoiler
“extreme pro”
branding to a degree, but again that’s just based on my experience with the brand, and the reviews. Also the price difference was negligible. As for the reader, well it was the cheapest one.
As for the store where I got it, also based on experience and convenience. It’s a major retailer now, but I used to buy from them when they were a tiny back alley store. And I still looked in 2 brick and mortar stores first.
On the same day I also went in the mall (the closest one) to look for a few things like swimming trunks and a belt pack. I was aware of brands but why would I care about them? Mostly they just make things too expensive.
As for other stuff like food or medicine, I mostly buy store brands, or look at ingredients, or occasionally randomly try new stuff. There’s usually no difference between a detergent from a big brand or the store brand.
I also teach other people that.
As such the only kind of marketing that may affect me are sales, and then I have to actively be in a store and need the thing anyway. So that’s not much of an ad, that’s just shopping with common sense.
