How many ads are we exposed to each day?

On numerous occasions, I’ve heard the claim that people are now exposed to over 1,500 advertising messages a day. Sure, I realize ads are everywhere (I’m in the ad business, so feel free to blame me), but 1,500 seems highly unlikely. Assuming 17 waking hours, that’s 1.5 ads per minute. I haven’t been able to find any concrete study on it, just several studies that reference the widely-held opinion without any mention of how that number was derived. Thoughts?

WAG – Far too many!

Exposed to 1,500 my be true but certainly not in any meaningful way.
A guess of maybe 500 that would register to some small extent and 50 more or less that you really are aware of the content.
I conciously try to “tune them out” most all of the time.

My WAG is that most of the ads are seen on the highway, via billboards and the like. Newspapers are also filled with ads (not clasified, but business) that are overlooked in a heartbeat.

Plus, the OP did say ads *exposed * to, not ads seen or remembered.

Thats just my two cents

What all is counted? Newspaper, magazines, radio, tv ads and product placement, ads on buses, billboards, car dealership stickers on cars, T-shirts for Nike, popup and banner ads on the internet, mail.

Wild-flying-guess numbers to follow.
reading the paper in the morning - I just scanned 2 sections, and saw 50 ads.
1/2 hr drive listening to the radio - maybe 10 ads? there seem like a ton of them
1/2 hr drive, billboards - 5/mile is probably low, but 515 miles=75 billboards
car dealer sticker on cars in traffic - I’ll be really conservative. 20 in 30 minutes.
4hrs, ad free, in the office.
Lunch - 1hr of radio - 20 ads
drive to lunch and back - 10 billboards
car stickers during drive - 10 more, very conservative
T-shirts/coats/bags with company logos - 10 (a guess. I think that’s probably low)
4 more hours of work
1/2 hr drive listening to the radio - 10 ads
1/2 hr drive, billboards - 75 billboards
car dealer sticker on cars in traffic - 20 in 30 minutes.
check the mail - 5 ads/fliers
read a magazine - 50 more (similar to a newspaper?)
watch 2 hrs of TV - (8 breaks
5 ads/break?) 40 ads

That’s 405 ads. I didn’t count listening to my coworkers radio all day. I didn’t count time surfing the web. No trips to the mall.

So exposure to 500-1000 per day, I can easily see.

If logos count I could believe it. How many logos are on your computer screen right now? I’ve got 5 Microsoft, 1 Adobe, 1 Trend Micro, and one Google logo visible. Plus a logo on just about every item on my desk.

There’s lots of relevant info here.

Don’t forget that the average person will be exposed to a lot more ads if they live and work near Times Square.