Does anyone make purchasing decisions based on the person trying to sell you the product?
And if so, is it a positive decision (you buy) or a negative decision (you don’t buy or purchase a competitor’s product)?
I cannot personally think of a product I’ve purchased because I liked the pitchman (or pitchwoman) hawking the product. However, I have definitely NOT purchased a product because I didn’t like the person who is selling it.
Examples:
Flo - the Progressive Insurance woman annoys me in such a way that I can not and will not consider purchasing their insurance. The ad campaign around Flo must be successful, because they shove her down our collective throats all day every day. But her impact on me is the exact opposite of what Progressive wants it to be.
Phil Swift - the squat, wider-than-a-cartoon-mouthed pitchman for Flex Seal, causes a similar reaction. All of the “as seen on TV” ads follow the same basic script (Billy Mays probably would have done Flex Seal if he was still alive). I know he is supposed to shout at us… however, I dislike him so much I would never buy the product.
Anyone out there have a simliar example? And does anyone have an example of buying a product because they actually liked the pitchman?
If Progressive offered the best car insurance policy I’d buy it even if Flo annoyed me. Car insurance is expensive, the savings can be substantial . For small items I might skip over something just for not liking the pitch. It doesn’t really matter, they don’t know or care that I’m not buying that one little piece of junk, but I still don’t have to give them my money.
I do find Progressive’s (and all car insurance company’s) commercials really really annoying. They are all so dripping with ‘overbearing earnest hipness’ and yet are all the epitome of stupid, stodgy, Mad Men-esque traditional, manipulative advertising. But being that for the last 15+ years I buy car insurance online therefore the ads aren’t important to me (insurance is now completely impersonal, like paying a utility bill) I figured since they spent a lot on advertising I’d check them out first. They turned out to have the best rate so I went with them without a second thought.
Cialis. My fucking God. If I ever need an ED medication, I’m going with Viagra. Or better yet, Levitra. (Viagra ads are pretty bad too but not as bad as Cialis).
I’ve sworn off Burger King for life after their “I want my Whopper” campaign. It was the definition of pervasive, and also misogynistic (“they should now call it Burger Queen” hurr hurr)
I’m sitting here in my Isaac Mizrahi sweater, on my bed covered with Isaac Mizrahi sheets and an Isaac Mizrahi quilt. In a little while I will be changing into my Isaac Mizrahi pajamas, and putting on my Isaac Mizrahi bathrobe. On my nightstand I have a box of Isaac Mizrahi Kleenex. I might even wear my Isaac Mizrahi boots tomorrow.
It’s not that these aren’t all perfectly nice products. But Isaac has sold his name, and I doubt he had much involvement in their design. I just personally enjoy watching him and reading about him, and I genuinely like him, which makes me more inclined to buy something bearing his name.
It’s not 100% though. I didn’t like the scent of his perfume at all, so that was a “no” for me, even with Isaac’s name on it.
I ALMOST bought a packet of InVINCEable cleaner at the local grocery store because of the Vince commercials, but after a few pick ups and put downs on the shelf, I ultimately passed.
I think I’m more likely NOT to buy something because an ad annoys me, than to have an ad motivate me to buy something. But that could be because I have very simple needs and altogether too much stuff already.
However, I quit buying Quizno’s sandwiches after a particularly bad couple of campaigns and it’s not very likely I’ll go back. And after being a Geico customer for like 15 years I switched because their ads are fucking annoying and it is actually impossible to get certain questions answered by their reps on the phone.
When compareng car insurance, I used comparison websites, didn’t use them all. I ended up using GoCompare as they are functionally identical and I liked the pitchman. I have a feeling that I probably end up buying a lot of fungible goods that are funcionally identical, because of the likibility of the person selling, but I can’t think of any other examples.
When I was a kid there was a ad with a kid who wouldn’t eat his lunch until he had some Fritos with it and for some reason that clicked with me and for a long time I had to have Fritos with my sandwich (not on them, just with them).
The cyclical rage against “advertising” - whether it’s defacing billboards, playing AdBuster games or this sort of discussion - is misplaced in that advertising is only a small part of consumer product marketing, and it isn’t even the important part.
The marketing industry knows this - has for many decades - and a good part of a major ad campaign is to give consumers a target to “hate” - vent feelings from mild rejection to outright torch mob violence - and deflect attention from the rest of the marketing effort. Ads are crafted as much to be something to laugh at (in the dismissive sense) and take heat from the market audience as they are to serve any of the tired old verities about informing, amusing, advising, notifying.
Most people are right when they say “advertising never makes me buy anything” - but not for the reasons they think they’re right. Being “anti-advertising” is somewhere between useless and wearing a KICK ME sign for the marketing industry. You might as well be a pilot trying to shoot every piece of chaff out of the sky. (While the real target slips past, possibly without ever being noticed.)
This, in spades. The only influence from a commercial might be in the styling of a car, but to buy something merely because you like the spokesperson is just. . .stupid. Prescription drug commercials are the worst: you can’t buy them OTC, and your doctor will prescribe whatever he thinks will work best for you; and most likely, you’ll end up with a generic version anyway. I don’t understand the deluge of those ads.
Because they lead to a deluge of people (almost all of them older, with essentially unlimited insurance) demanding those miracle cures from their doctors. Who are already under heavy barrage from the rest of the PharmCo’s marketing effort and being all but bribed and coerced to prescribe WondraMaxElite left and right.
Very few drugs that you see in such ads even have generic equivalents; they tend to be the highest-profit, new or at least still-under-patent proprietaries.
There are only two countries on earth that permit DTC - Direct To Consumer - pharma ads. So you can forget about retiring to New Zealand if you wanted to escape them.