I have a policy of muting ASAP any ad that uses a popular song as soundtrack, and of not buying the product being advertised.
Not to unduly pick on Sam Adams beer, but that’s one.
It probably affects me without me realising it, but not for anything worth more than about forty quid. Then I research and look for reviews and so on.
For household regulars, I mostly shop very carefully and cheaply and am lucky that I have access to an awful lot of shops; if BOGOF deals at the supermarket count as advertising then they definitely affect me, but even then I still check that they’re actually better value than the alternatives.
One of the most effective ways it affects me is in reminding me of something that I already wanted. I recently tried to register for LoveFilm - er, like Netflix, not porno - because an ad reminded me that I wanted to try their streaming service. (I couldn’t register because it wanted credit card into and mine is currently not working).
There definitely are a lot of ads that make me NOT want the product. There’s a TV channel called Viva that had such obnoxious ads that I still won’t click on their channel even a year later. I actually passed the main bloke from those ads in the street a little while after they aired, and I instantly felt a welling of bilious hatred that really surprised me. He apparently even noticed the look on my face.
So if an ad can make me dislike a product that much, then odds are others are affecting me without me realising it. I doubt I’m buying stuff just because it’s “cool” or associated with a particular celebrity, but if there’s an ad that is funny or features a particular celebrity then maybe I’ll actually watch the ad rather than tuning it out.
I think I can safely say that advertisers are not in any way hoping to target or influence people who keep a spreadsheet of every personal purchase and almost all household purchases.
There is a saying in ad industry that only 50% of advertising works, but you have no way of knowing which 50% it is.
Yes, advertising works. You may think it doesn’t work on you, and, who knows, you may even be correct, but it works on the masses. Sometimes it is subliminal, sometimes it is “brand awareness” and sometimes it is direct, but it definitely works.
For me advertising affects food purchases, sometimes. I see ads for a pizza place, with that hot, melty cheese stringing up, and lo and behold. The next weekend I buy pizza somewhere.
Two things:
new products I didn;t know about but saw and thought were nifty.
and
products with such horrible ad campaigns I stay away from them.
I have no doubt that advertising has an effect. It mostly has an effect on those who watch it, and on those who purchase the kind of products that need advertising to be successful. (The “masses”?) But that doesn’t include all people. There’s a freshman-who-has-just-taken-a-comm-course kind of assumption that because companies spend a lot on advertising that it must necessarily turn every member of society into a Manchurian candidate. It doesn’t have to be that way to useful for marketing, however.
Of course. Advertising doesn’t have to work on everyone to be effective. If it works on 10% that’s enough to be hugely successful.
Amazon ads are a huge influence on me but I’m generally extremely happy with the purchase I then make based on them. I may spend more $ overall but I’m quite happy and there’s very little error involved (as opposed to shopping via BB&Beyond or Target or in a mall). Does my OXO salad spinner reinforce the fact I’m college educated, somewhat snobby and into kitchen gear and affordability? Yeah.
I find it absolutely ridiculous that WalMart or my local midsize chain grocery store has radio and TV ads. I know you exist, you’ve existed forever practically yet now you’re pissing me off and encouraging me to shop at Super Target like never before.
As far as branded items go, we eat two types of high fiber cereal, make our own oatmeal/hot cereal from bulk bins and buy virtually all other canned goods or shelf staples at Whole Foods, typically their house brand. It’s affordable and often better/cheaper, like peanut butter and jam (and not filled with extra hydrogenated oils).
As for cleaning/paper products/etc supplies, it was a bit of trial and error over the years but I go with Method, Finish powerball tabs (consumer reports), Bounty select a size (growing up, tried all the others in single rolls and they suck), and Charmic Basic or Scott Extra Soft. That’s pretty much all. ETA: Liquid BarKeeper’s friend as well. Solid gold.
Beauty products, however, I’m fairly able to be easily influenced with a big coupon. Once I find what’s “perfect” (like my foundation) you couldn’t pry it from my cold dead hands (lone exception being unless an excellent friend with a similar complexion recommended something else).
I understand the principles of TV/magazine/outdoor advertizing, but I do not understand why internet ads are so different from those. I rarely see online ads for food, or other products by major corporations that I can purchase in the real world. Instead, internet ads mainly consist of links to order products and services specifically sold on the internet (which require the ad to be effective enough to get an immediate response, and can never manifest as subconscious impulse buys later on), or worse, the kind of scam “ads” with no visible product that only an idiot would click on (such as “ads” that consist of a ridiculously easy trivia question). Why aren’t more of these ad spaces being bought up by McDonalds and Coca Cola? It’s not like some shady internet weight loss program has the ability to outbid those kinds of companies.
Not exactly; advertising firms only need to convince the people buying their advertising that it works for it to be “hugely successful”. Even if it actually drives away customers, it will be sold and copied if the people running the companies buying the ads can be convinced that they work. Corporate executives aren’t any less gullible than the average person (they may well be more so), they just have more money and power.
True, there is no mechanism by which advertisers can demonstrate the effectiveness of any given ad campaign. If there was such a mechanism, advertisers would base their rates on the increase in business or profit for the company they create ads for.
I don’t know if anyone has brought up the importance of media and its relationship with advertising. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio would not exist as we know it without advertising. In fact, those forms of media exist only as a platforms for advertisements. Advertising space is sold based on the number of people that are expected to see it. “For only $500, Coca Cola, your brand will be exposed to the 8,000 households which subscribe to our magazine.” Perhaps that discussion is beyond the scope of this particular thread.
To answer the OP, yes, I am affected by the advertisements I see on television, movies, magazines and newspapers. No amount of advertising will get me to buy something I am not inclined to buy. i.e. No matter how much I loved some of those old Bud Light and Miller Light ads, I wasn’t going to buy their products. However, if I see an ad for a hamburger or a new exhibit at the local museum it may affect my plans for the weekend as I am inclined to visit museums and eat hamburgers. (I never eat hamburgers at museums though. They hate that.)
Ads affect me as an information source, primary or secondary. I’m not a big consumer, as in, I don’t buy a lot of heavily advertised stuff other than food. We get sales flyers, though, and my wife consults them to decide what to buy where. So I’m affected second-hand by those. If a store like Target is constantly advertising how low their prices are, I might get the idea that they’re a good bet for buying whatever piece of crap I’m after that day. This happens a lot with gifts. I’m pretty clueless about shopping, so I rely on ads.
And then there’s word of mouth. For instance, I think I first heard of Kindle from an internet forum. Maybe the person who made that post heard about it from a friend, and so on. I’m sure, though, that the person who started that word of mouth heard about Kindle from an ad. And I would not have heard of Amazon, I don’t think, if not for advertising. Or Whole Foods. Or Walmart. Or Trader Joe’s. The locations of these places, the big ass signs they put out front, I consider all that to be a form of advertising. Plus what’s on the shelves and how it’s laid out and the packaging and all.
Internet ads have been mentioned. With a broader definition of advertising, even with Ad Block on at home and at work, I deliberately seek out a lot of advertisements. You Tube is little but a way to show me music videos, designed to make me like and buy the music. Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB help me look at trailers for movies, more ads. Ebay is just a series of ads, and I’m influenced by how the merch is presented. No pic? No thanks.
If you only consider what you see on TV as advertising, sure, most of it seems to be aimed at old people, or youngsters, or dumbasses. A lot is aimed at women. One of my big complaints about TV ads is that so few of them are of any interest to me, but that must be the same for most everybody. Even so, TV ads influence me. If I happen to be watching and it says the Simpsons are on at such and such a time, I’m more likely to watch then.
I can safely say that internet ads/banners have zero affect on me because I ignore them to the fullest. I make an effort to not read or pay attention to them. However, everything else probably does affect me at least subconciously.
Sometimes an ad just straight-forward prompts me to buy the thing. I see an ad for some food product that just looks and sounds so delicious that I have to check to out, at least once.
What makes you think this is true?
I know I can’t be the only person who pretty much starts with the lowest price version of an item I need and then determines whether to get that particular brand again based on its performance or how much I enjoyed it.
Like the clear tape mentioned earlier, if the no name stuff sticks a piece of paper to the fridge or seals a package well enough, I will probably keep getting it. If not, I may try a more expensive product until I find one that works.
Brand loyalty doesn’t come from ads as far as I am concerned. It comes from a product fulfilling its function reliably.
When I want to build a computer, I look at independant benchmark results for the important components and balance cost versus performance. I then get the least expensive options for the bits that don’t have meet certain performance criteria. Advertisements don’t serve a function here aside from bringing my attention to the fact that X company makes a version of Y component. The only word I take from them is that they make a product.
When I go to buy clothes, I have three criteria: They can’t be in overbearing colors or designs, they have to cover my naked, and they have to be inexpensive. I’d seriously have nothing but sets of the same no name pants and shirts in my closet if people didn’t give me clothes for my birthday and Christmas.
As mentioned previously by others, advertisements generally only work with me if they are introducing a product I was unaware of and can see practical value for. If I buy that product and it doesn’t do what it advertised, I just never get it again.
We tend to notice when an ad has a negative impact on us, but the ones with a positive impact slip beneath our awareness radar, and we don’t notice them so much. As someone said above, create positive associations so the brand pops into mind when shopping.
The people claiming adamantly that they are never influenced by advertising are fooling themselves. Think of hypnotism – the person who brags that they cannot be hypnotized are often very easily hypnotized by a skilled hypnotist. I’ve seen it happen.
And negative reactions to an ad? The “I will never buy x because of the offensive ad” response? A skilled advertiser for a rival product can zoom right in and take advantage. It doesn’t have to be overt or obvious; it often works best when it isn’t.
After all, if it’s going on in the unconscious, we are not going to be conscious of it. That’s the point.
Because advertisers do not charge based on how much business they expect to bring in for their clients. What makes you think it isn’t true?
I’ve contacted some local businesses that have spammed me. They say that they get the most targets from using email. Then I ask them how many of those targets actually become buyers. When they stop and think about it, they realize that they are turning more people off. So maybe I’m making a difference.
You aren’t going to the right museums. One of the local museums is very happy to have you eat hamburgers at the museum…as long as you do so at the cafe.
I actually didn’t say that advertising doesn’t affect me. I said it rarely has the affect that the advertisers want.
No, again I did not say that. Sure, advertising makes me aware that things exist. That’s a far cry from having any effect on my buying decisions.
No, that’s not how it works for me. You really have to accept that your view of how traditional advertising works is just not universally true for every person. When I need dishwasher tablets, I either buy the same ones I bought last time that seemed to work ok, or I buy the second-least expensive thing on the shelf. Advertising and brand awareness just never enter into the equation.