this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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I cannot recall the last time I was swayed by an advertisement.

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[โ€“] joelthelion 32 points 2 years ago (2 children)

A very simple example: advertising makes you aware of brands. Just knowing that a brand exists might be enough to influence your decision in the future. Think about it: are you more likely to choose the brand you heard about, or the brand you don't even know exists?

[โ€“] WhoRoger 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The only times I choose a brand is based on reviews or personal experience. And I may still go against that based on price or other need.

This week I bought a

spoilerSandisk
SD card and a
spoilerKingston
card reader. That's because all cards except this one have always failed me in some way at some point. I might have been swayed by
spoiler"extreme pro"
branding to a degree, but again that's just based on my experience with the brand, and the reviews. Also the price difference was negligible. As for the reader, well it was the cheapest one.

As for the store where I got it, also based on experience and convenience. It's a major retailer now, but I used to buy from them when they were a tiny back alley store. And I still looked in 2 brick and mortar stores first.

On the same day I also went in the mall (the closest one) to look for a few things like swimming trunks and a belt pack. I was aware of brands but why would I care about them? Mostly they just make things too expensive.

As for other stuff like food or medicine, I mostly buy store brands, or look at ingredients, or occasionally randomly try new stuff. There's usually no difference between a detergent from a big brand or the store brand.

I also teach other people that.

As such the only kind of marketing that may affect me are sales, and then I have to actively be in a store and need the thing anyway. So that's not much of an ad, that's just shopping with common sense.

[โ€“] BeaPep 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I always buy the cheapest option on the shelf (in terms of food). Usually that's the store brand for the store I am in. For electronics I usually just do a lot of research (Reddit, looking into age of the company, picture reviews and 1 star complaints) and ask friends. I'm sure that the "ads" shown in my research sway me sometimes though when I'm truly clueless about something and just have to take people's word for it.

Sometimes, though, the people you're trusting to be objective have been swayed by ads themselves! It's honestly impossible IMO to be completely unaffected by ads because of that. Even if you never see an ad in your life -- the people around you have.

[โ€“] joelthelion 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I always buy the cheapest option on the shelf (in terms of food).

The question is not necessarily which option you pick, but that you feel the need for a particular product at all. Without advertising, for example, people would buy far fewer sodas. I'm pretty sure the same goes for tech gadgets.

[โ€“] WhoRoger 4 points 2 years ago

That's a question of consumerism in general, not necessarily of ads.

Why is it different? Because if we shrug and say that well, we buy unnecessarily shit anyway, then we are even more likely to buy based on ads and other marketing ploys.

Being aware and skeptical of actual advertisements, on the other hand, can make you more wary about buying too much.

I mean, if you watch TV ads, don't use adblock etc, you're just used to the whole ecosystem and are just going with the flow. But if you block ads everywhere and then suddenly get hit by one, you definitely realize how stupid and evil they are. Plus you have more time to look for other sneaky marketing tactics.

[โ€“] bnaur 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Sometimes, though, the people you're trusting to be objective have been swayed by ads themselves! It's honestly impossible IMO to be completely unaffected by ads because of that.

And even if the reviews are objective ads might have an effect on what products get reviewed. Or what products stores are likely to stock etc.

So even if you try to be objective yourself and do your research you may never even be aware of some competing product or it just isn't available.