Most people think that advertising has some effect on some people some of the time. But most people think it does not affect themself.
Kind of like that thread going about how there are millons of bad drivers and bad lovers in the world. But not one person actually think that they are a bad lover or driver.
Does advertising affect you? Why do you think that?
I choose not to use certain products based on their ads. However, if I see an ad for a product that I think might be worth trying, sure I’ll pick it up.
The right advertising will get me to try a new product. However, I won’t necessarily believe any of the claims until I check it out for myself.
A lot of the time, I find advertising to be successful on me with “right time, right place” situations. Like I’ll be at home wondering what to have for dinner and a pizza commercial comes on and gives me the idea to have pizza (although it could backfire as I usually get pizza from one place regardless of who did the advertising). But overall, like most of the population, advertising works on me sometimes and not at others. The most useful purpose is merely for name recognition so that when I go to a store and I see two brands - one I’ve never heard of and one I’ve seen the ad for - I’ll likely take a closer look at the one I’ve seen advertised simply because I’ve heard of it before.
I don’t believe that advertising affects me at all.
I don’t know for SURE that that is true. They might have infiltrated me subconsciously.
I think I can tell you why I bought a Sony TV and the reasons don’t have to do with ads.
I know I’ve never bought anything that you order from the TV. I don’t buy things I see in circulars. I don’t drink wine that advertises. I don’t eat at restaurants that advertise. The only product that I regularly use that I see commercials for is Budweiser, but really that’s just because when I’m drinking cheap shit, it’s my favorite.
I really can’t think of anything that I regularly use, or even tried for the first time, because of commercials. I have a Subaru. I don’t think their ads are any better or worse than VW or Honda or anything else I could afford.
I use Crest toothpaste. You gotta use something.
I don’t even know what kind of shampoo or soap we use, but I’m sure it’s not something we bought because of ads. I shop at the closest grocery store. I don’t even know what brand my computer is. I buy practical clothes from stores I like.
Really, with most things we buy, we see a need (or want) first and then go seek a product; I feel that some people see a product advertised and feel a need to have it.
I’m with interface2x. I usually only buy “brand-name” products, just because I’ve heard of it. However, I can’t say that usually leads me to buy one brand name over another (like Crest vs Colgate). It’ll just make me ignore stuff I haven’t heard of before.
What really affects what I buy is the packaging. Is it well done and overall appealing? I’ll probably buy it. That’s why I bought the Aquafresh Extreme Clean when it first came out. I liked the packaging.
I believe people who pay attention to advertising are people who are interested in that product.
For example: You’re in the market for a car…you start looking at different car ads to get a feel for who’s got what and the price ranges.
I’m tremendously affected by advertising: at least, as far as food is concerned. I’ve never cared about things like makeup, image, and clothing, so I hesitate to say any of that stuff would affect me. But I’ll be watching TV or reading a magazine or even just driving past a billboard and I’ll see a food displayed and suddenly I’ll be craving something similar. It’s very odd how suggestable I am with regards to my food and drink choices.
I have never paid attention to alcohol commercials; I have a feeling that if I did I would wind up a drunk.
~Tasha
I think it affects me very little, maybe not at all.
To start with, I don’t see many ads. I watch movies and TV shows on DVDs, not on live TV. I use Firefox with Adblock, Flashblock, Greasemonkey, and an automatically updated filterset, so I rarely if ever see any ads on webpages. I don’t listen to the radio.
So the only ads I see are either the ones that are entertaining enough to watch on their own merits, product placement, and things like billboards or signs on the sides of delivery trucks.
I do lots of research before I buy something expensive, to make sure I’m getting what I really want. And I tend to just buy whatever’s cheapest when I’m buying a standard commodity.
Saw a new billboard today. Usually I pay close attention to the new billboards, so I know what products everyone wants me to buy. But this billboard had no effect on me at all. That’s right, no affect at all. No…effect…at…
THAT’S IT, I’M GOING TO CLOWN COLLEGE!!!
It may not affect me personally, but many people have trouble understanding that marketing definitely has intrinsic value, and that a brand, once built, is an asset like any physical asset, that’s why it shows up on the accounting books.
I personally am not very knowledgable about cars, I really can’t claim to understand how and why a BMW is superior to a Hyundai and thus should command a price premium, but I DO realize that driving a BMW will influence how others percieve my character (“asshole driver”, amongst the Doper community 
) which I CAN place a value on. The premium that BMW commands can be expressed as a ROI on the amount of money invested in advertising, publiciy, James Bond movies, etc. If all my friends know that BMW = cool, then the BMW has value to me even if I never drive it.
This is essentially the business model of clothing and apparel manufacturers, Nike markets and sells a product that has an intrinsic value of around fuck-all in terms of material and labour costs, but a great deal in terms of sponsorship dollars invested in Micheal Jordan and Tiger Woods. How many shoes or hats does Nike produce? Exactly ZERO, since all their manufacturing is done by third party contractors in China, Vietnam etc. For all intents and purposes, companies like Nike are advertising firms first and foremost. In Naomi Klein’s words, Nike was one of the first companies to realize that in their business, brand has transcended product.
So even if you never ever see/hear an advertisement in your life, as long as you hvae to interact with other people who do, the value created by publicity will still be there.
Sure, advertising affects me. It’s why I shave my legs and under my arms. It assures me that I will be a social outcast if my scalp is flaky and my toilet bowl isn’t germ-free. It leads me to neat new products, some of which are actually useful.
Of course it does. But it affects me much less than it used to. For one thing, I don’t watch live TV. That cuts down on a huge amount of advertising, as has already been pointed out. I also rarely read magazines, except Cooking Light, and when I do, I usually skip over the ads.
I am willing to try the store brand of anything. Most of the time, the store brand is just fine. If not, I switch back to the name brand. Crystal Light lemonade, for instance, is better than any of the generic sugar free brands I’ve tried. It’s not that much more, so that I’ll pay for.
I actually play a little game with myself at the grocery store, to see if I can get everything I need, and not purchase anything that I’ve seen an ad for in the past year or so. If I make it, I get cheapskate bragging rights for awhile. 
Coupons is where they get me, though. I clip coupons regularly, and though I usually only clip for products I already use or know I need, sometimes I can’t resist one, and I end up buying something that I really would never have picked up without the coupon.
I also mix many of my own cleaning products, so I rarely buy brand name cleaning products. I do use OxiClean in the laundry some of the time, because the stuff has proven to me that it really works. (I stay at home, if you’re wondering where I find the time to make my own laundry soap.)
So, yeah, advertising affects me, but I try not to let it affect me too much.
I was thinking about this last night (cool thread) and while I don’t have an answer for myself, two things occurred to me.
One, if you shop mostly for antiques, you live in a world in which every item is unique, and there is no advertising. You could use that world to compare how you feel when shopping in the current world.
Two, if you buy only one brand of toothpaste such as Trunk’s “I use Crest toothpaste. You gotta use something”, you are probably affected by advertising. If you weren’t, it would be, “I use whichever toothpaste is cheapest at the time when I run out of the previous brand.” So long as you stick with a brand, you are affected by the brand name, which brings us back to kawaiitentaclebeast’s point. It’s only if you switch back and forth between store brands and name brands by actual experienced preference, like StuffLikeThatThere, that you aren’t.
Kawaii, Stuff, your names are a pain to type.
I’m affected by advertising, I always have been. I’m very suggestible.
However I’m also fickle, and my suggestibility is limited to food and electronic goods.
For clothes, I buy whatever’s cheap and will fit. Shampoo, whatever’s on special or hubby picks up for me to use. Same for deodorant (though I have to be a bit more careful with that, I’ll still buy “whatever” brand, but it has to be hypoallergenic, I get itchy pits). Shoes are the same as clothes. I don’t carry a handbag, but for my backpacks and wallets I do the same.
Advertising influences me to try new products that I may not otherwise have heard of, but it doesn’t guarantee my continued use of them if they fail to live up to expectations. For instance, I buy my brand of shampoo because I like the results I get from it, not because of the eleventy bajillion dollars they spend on advertising every year.
Bad advertising influences me to avoid certain products, services and companies and sometimes I have a long memory for bad ads.
Sorry. I’m perfectly happy to be called just plain Stuff, though, if it helps.
It may be splitting hairs, but I may be brand-loyal without actually being affected by advertising. For instance, I haven’t seen an ad for Crest since I was a kid.
I continue to buy it now because I know that I like the taste and the feel of it and I really don’t want to risk, if you will, buying an other brand that I might not like and wasting the toothpaste money on it.
Some of it just puzzles me. I see ads for this “RAZR” phone and I think, “don’t people already have a phone that works? Cell phones have worked fine for years.” Something like that, to me, is just marketing status, not a product. I can confidently say that that kind of ad has ZERO effect on me.
However, there are some things that I think you really can’t tell why you have a perception of the product. I bought an HDTV this past year. After noticing that that they’re mostly similar in price between brands, I went with a Sony. I have a “good feel” about Sony that I don’t have with Samsung or Toshiba. Why? I don’t know. I’ve had Sony products around since I was a kid. . .a Dream Machine and a Walkman and a VCR. If making products that work is “advertising” than consider me affected.
Does advertising affect me? Well, it must, mustn’t it? It does affect people and whether I like it or not I’m a part of people, and I can’t really think of a reason why I in particular would have a brain made of rock and steel while everyone else’s is made of lint (although it certainly does seem that way sometimes… but I digress).
On the other hand, I genuinely can’t think of a single instance in which an ad has influenced my actions. I look around me right now and can’t find a single item whose purchase was influenced by ads. The keyboard I’m typing this on came with the computer my grandfather used to have and that I got after his death, 'cause I was the only one in the family who could find any use for it. The rest of my computer equipment I got through a deal at work. The yoghurt package standing next to the monitor was bought because it’s the kind of yoghurt with the least fat and sugar that I could find.
My TV was a gift. So was my cell phone. My printer is my grandmother’s old one that I helped myself to after installing her new one. One of my bookcases I got when my parents moved. The other, like my living-room table, I got from IKEA. Hey, I’m Swedish. Many of my books were gifts, the others were bought because I found them interesting when I picked them up in a bookstore, or because I had read something by the author previously and enjoyed it. And so on.
I keep looking around and I really cannot think of a single thing that an ad got me to buy. So either advertising is a big scam, or it really does not affect me in particular.
I’m affected by it, although it’s rare that I’m so immediately affected that there’s a direct connection where I find myself seeing a commercial and then directly buying a product as a result.
I don’t watch TV very much, but I do get a lot of information from print ads, especially for clothing and cosmetics. I seldom go out and seek a specific brand or item after seeing it in print, but I do get my information about what colors, necklines, hemlines, etc etc etc and shop accordingly. I think clothing companies realize that a lot of their advertising is promoting the industry in general – sort of like a collective. Print ads also get me to shop for limited time offers and sales, there are some items that I will wait to buy because I know they are frequently offered on sale so I keep an eye out for any specials.
Trailers for movies and promotions for new TV shows or DVDs will get me going. I don’t read a lot of entertainment news, so trailers are usually the first time I hear about a new movie and I’m usually thumbs up or thumbs down on whether or not to see the film based on the trailer alone.
One thing that cracks me up is that there are a few products/brands to which I am loyal to this day because of advertising I saw in my childhood. If 9 Lives is good enough for Morris, it’s good enough for my cat! I distinctly remember watching those commercials when I was a kid and thinking that it must be the best cat food ever because I lurrrrved Morris.
I’m also a dorkmeister so if I see a business advertised in some context that I’m involved with, like supporting a local charity, I will make a point of mentioning that if I am patronizing that company in hopes that they will continue their involvement. You know how you sometimes see blurbs in programs that say “please mention this ad!”? I’m sure they’re usually like “okay lady, whatever” but I still do it.