this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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it's nuts that no one likes ads yet advertising wouldn't be a billions of dollars industry if they didn't work
Apparently there are some people that like ads, and a larger amount who may not like them but are willing to tolerate them.
Those of us who will make proactive choices to not engage with advertising are the minority.
I like to read a catalog when I'm interested in discovering something I may want. An advert on the internet is like a door-to-door salesperson staring through my window.
This is my impression.
My partner doesn't care about ads at all. I installed newpipe on her phone but she prefers the yt app, with ads.
Usually in these threads someone starts espousing the virtues of "responsible" or "appropriate" ads.
A common argument is that its the most efficient way to pay for online content. I strongly disagree.
Suffice to say, I think ads are so normalised that most people don't see them as intrusive.
People accepted unobtrusive ads, it's once they started taking over the actual content that they became a big no-no. The ad companies and ad-reliant websites fucked themselves.
I've seen a few ads recently that are just random as hell, don't say a product name and don't even have a website or link to find out what it is even advertising. They always make me wonder how they're working, if they're working. They seem like just a waste of money and time for everyone involved, including the advertiser themselves.
I use adblockers but my parents don't. Visiting my folks and seeing the ads they get served is just bizarre. They get served ads in Spanish even though there's nothing about the account, device or geolocation that would indicate the audience is Spanish speaking, they get very long ads for medicines, which...you know how they always list an increasingly long and concerning bunch of side effects? Well the last one I saw ended with a full reading of the drug's MSDS. They get ads from car dealers half a continent away, campaign ads for a different state's legislature...Why was there ever a television advertisement even made for General Electric power plant turbines? Who's watching Zeltik, gets a mid-roll ad for gigawatt generator components and makes any kind of decision based on what they saw?
I also get ads in Spanish often when watching on my TV (no adblocker)... Dunno if that's just because I am in California or if my phone or other devices picked up my Spanish speaking neighbors and assumes I also speak Spanish. I mean, I do, but not well or often.
This is on a Smart TV specifically. I haven't seen this behavior on a PC or phone...again because it's my parents' house, they watch videos on their smart TV. So I don't know if it makes system language available the way a web browser does...? I will say Spanish is the second-best guess in this area.
The people that do spend the time trying to find out what it is for will remember the eNgAgEmEnT from needing to find out what it is and that correlates with future sales. Just like "rewards" programs that are designed to mentally lock someone into the store/product while harvesting their data.
The sad thing is: ads dont need to be liked to work. Making enjoyable ads is expensive, making annoying ads that still work is cheaper
That's because they are psychological warfare. They don't need to be liked because the goal isn't to create a positive association with the product, it's to brainwash people into thinking they need the product
Or sometimes just remind you the product exists. They don't have to make you like , but when you see it you end up thinking "man it's been a while since I've had ". Next then you know, you're grabbing at the grocery store because you've been thinking about it lately.
Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!
That was certainly memorable but also I did not buy any.
Yum Yum, Bumblebee, Bumblebee Tuna!!
Bumblebee Tuna Song
best rendition ever
I legit strongly suspect they don't work, at least not as well as it's implied. Like, everyone thinks they work because they used to work really well or something.
It's all much more simple than people think it is. I hate ads, I know I hate them and I generally ignore them. But if I need something, the ads with that in are the ones I notice. Like when you buy a car and start seeing the same car everywhere.
That's all the general stuff ads, some are crap, some are funny, etc.
Then there's the top level brands, the big guys with the huge budgets. They advertise to say to the world "we are the biggest and best and don't you forget it!"
If they stopped, it wouldn't take long for their biggest competitor to take the lead in market share. And getting it back is almost impossible unless the ground is once again conceded.
So yes, advertising does work. But not really in the way we think it does. Which is why I despise it so much, because it wouldn't work if we weren't so busy and preoccupied with all the day to day stuff we are forced into.
We are lab rats, scurrying around trying to get to the end of the maze having finished all the tasks thrown in that become more and more so there's less time to think and we've never been taught differently argh!
You think they don't know this?
Because if we raised the level of education, the base standards of living, the sense of empathy and kindness we have for eachother, advertising would just look like this -
A lot of people don't mind ads, they even say they don't see them anymore, that their brain just tunes them out. Then you look at their spending habits and it's quite clear they are seeing them.
A big part of the population doesn't mind being constantly manipulated.
No one likes being manipulated. I like ads that promote healthy living for example, if they don't secretly promote any brand or product. They are pretty rare though, almost only in some public health care facilities.
well, as long as the companies buying the ads think they work, we have an industry
i am also immune to ads lol
Can you think of something you may have bought which you saw an advert for it years ago? Does or doesn't have to be the first time you became aware of it.
I can't think of a time I've seen an ad and thought, ya that's exactly what I need in my life.
Until they subtly inject them into other social media platforms, whereupon they’ll trickle into Lemmy like so much piss from an overflowing toilet. Mark my words, we’ll be up to our eyes in piss by 2026.
Those’ve been fairly common for the last like… 8 years on Reddit. Interestingly, they started as mug and trinket sale ads and have since launched into every facet. Some major marketing firms use that method now, and I blame spammers for that blight.
Luckily for me, I have the new AntiAdAssAdapter™, so I don't have to worry about that kind of stuff at all. Finally! I have the time to do what I want like take my grandkids to their school performance, or sit and nod at my clearly pregnant daughter while we look over a baby crib catalogue! Thanks Quadruple A!
Does that adapter come in MadeForAppleProducts™?
Rumor has it Apple is planning to announce one that works with their products. But for some reason, instead of concatenating their own brand name to it (AAAAA would sell so well) they've instead decided to name it "MarketMask"... typical apple
The problem started when they went from a basic preroll ad, to unskippable and then the large amount of mid-roll ads to push people into buying premium just as they increased the price.
the real problem is that people will complain about it for a minute, then buy it anyway
I think you're giving companies too much credit. Freakonomics did a series called "Does Advertising Actually Work?" and the tl;dr was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-1-tv-ep-440/
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/
i think human psychology is too nebulous and qualitative with way too many factors to definitively "measure" how effective ads are. all they really know is (most of the time) buy ads, revenue goes up.
but there's a reason your personal data is so coveted by advertisers. if they can parse that you're an avid hiker from the millions of data points they collect from you (websites visited, geolocation data, other purchases, etc), then they can sell ads for $400 hiking boots specifically for you, that people who never leave their couch and order delivery from hungry howies every day would just ignore
I suspect that's why Facebook makes so much money, they have a lot of information on you like that.
In a weird way, this is actually quite handy, as you get ads for things that are actually relevant to you.
dude, ads are bullshit. you should never buy anything based on the seller's ads. and i used to say a good way to research products was go to the niche subreddit, or even amazon reviews, but those are so full of bullshit shills anymore it's hard to know.
Beat me to this.
Advertisers tend to be strongly opposed to measuring advertising effectiveness, because if they're not effective, then they're out of a job.
What I've found is that advertising only works if I already wanted that product. That advertisement doesn't have to be these huge ad campaigns that they currently do. It could be as simple as showing a still image of a twix bar, and saying "Hey! Go buy a twix!" Yeah, ok.
But if I wasn't already planning on buying that product? Well that ad time may as well have been some archival footage showing the inside of a 1940s concentration camp in use.
That is to say, both are things that you find offensive to have to be watching, and neither are going to entice you to buy the product.
munches on a twix bar
.....what?
The main purpose of ads isn't to sell you a specific product immediately, their real purpose is to expose you to their brand to make the brand more familiar (and therefore more trustworthy) to you.
For example, recently, I needed a new insurance. So of course I went to the websites of the 5 insurance companies that I knew from advertising and compared their offers. Then I went to a comparison portal, which again I knew from the ads. The best offer was from a brand I didn't know so I went with the second one which was from a well known brand. I trusted the second offer more, simply because the brand felt more familiar to me.
Here's another story: there is this big online clothing store. I always hated their ads, they were really annoying, and at that time I didn't understand why anyone would buy clothes online. So guess where I went, 5 years later, after a disappointing offline shopping tour, in desparate need for new clothes?
Costco further supports this
My wife worked for a company that was heavily reliant on generating leads from ads. They had lots of real time monitoring of conversion rates to make sure they were actually making more money than they were spending on the ads. They would have to turn ad channels off all the time because the return on ad spend went negative.
So my conclusion is that ads can be somewhat effective for companies, but if they don't actively monitor and control the performance of their ads, they're probably just burning money. A lot of companies seem to advertise because they think that's the only way to grow.
Was it a niche company/product?
No, the company is publically listed with around 1 Bil market cap.
Or they work somewhat, resp. in some cases and the rest is make believe in execeutives, a waste of money. Let's say 50/50?