Do ads convince you to buy stuff?

Have you bought an item in the last 24 months because you saw an ad about it?

  • Total voters
    61
AV8R_87

AV8R_87

En-Route
Joined
Feb 1, 2024
Messages
3,627
Location
NE USA
Display Name
OC
I was ignoring some mind-numbing ads waiting for a video to load, and realized that I don't have a recollection of any of those ads convincing me to buy stuff in the past couple years. If anything, they made me ignore that company/product because of how dumb they were.

So, has anyone been talked into buying a product lately because they saw an ad about it?
 
Last edited:
No, especially video ads. If the ad interrupts whatever I am doing, it makes me hate their product and i refuse to buy it. Honestly cannot figure out how advertising is such a lucrative business, because I know very few people that have ever been persuaded to buy a product because of an ad instead of word-of-mouth confirmation or real product reviews.
 
They've worked in the regard that there's stuff I've been thinking about, but tabled, and then an ad jogged my memory about it and I wound up buying. I've also seen ads for things I didn't know existed, but immediately knew would solve a problem I had. OTOH, I've also NOT bought certain brands due to annoying or stupid ads.

There's a Goodyear airplane tire in my hangar right now because it was only a few bucks more than the Michelin and they had two blimps at Oshkosh. I still bought Coopers for the car though. Of course, they're owned by Goodyear now, so....
 
Last edited:
If an ad is about something that might be of interest, it would likely cause me to investigate further and then decide. If it is irrelevant, hit the skip button or the porcelain throne.
 
Yes ads work. Some better than others. Bottom line is if it is something you're interested in, then the "better" ad, based on what YOU think, will make you want one compeditor over the other.

But all ads do work through subliminal impact. So you walk into the store and need to by X, but you don't usually by X... So as you walk down the isle of all the Xs and one of the brands jumps out at you. There's no apparent reason why you were drawn to that brand, you just took it off the shelf. Odds are you've seen multiple ads for the brand and it subliminally stuck in the back on your mind.

ADDED: Similar to why Spam/Phishing calls work. You might ask yourself why anyone would give them your info. But at the right time with the right questions and something has just happened in your life that this makes sense... and you're screwed. Had a friends highly intelegent friend get spamed on her phone. She was having issues and had reached out to support. Before the real support got back to here, she got a spam call. So she freely gave them all her info just because of timing.
 
Jim K said:
They've worked in the regard that there's stuff I've been thinking about, but tabled, and then an ad jogged my memory about it and I wound up buying.
Click to expand...
That's about 1 in 40 for me.
Jim K said:
I've also seen ads for things I didn't know existed, but immediately knew would solve a problem I had.
Click to expand...
Probably 1 in 100-ish for me.

But with both cases, it's perhaps 1 in 5 that I go with that specific make/model of product in the ad.
 
It usually takes on the order of 7-10 "contacts" to get a consumer to notice a product. The contacts could be a trade show table, advertisement, email, sales calls, and so forth. Some commercials are memorable (Limu Emu, for example) but they haven't convinced mt to buy anything. I might remember the company if I need their products in the future.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Some commercials are memorable (Limu Emu, for example)
Click to expand...
PERFECT example. Those ads make my skin crawl. If I was shopping for insurance, I would NEVER consider that company based solely on the stupidity of their ads. I'm subjected to them multiple times a day on youtube, which exacerbates my intense hatred. I can't take a company seriously that would approve ads like that, especially an insurance company. They seem to be targeting the left third of the intelligence bell curve. My insurance company doesn't even advertise, so far as I'm aware. Neither does my broker. They rely on their customers recommending them.
 
Anymore I assume Product A has the ad budget, Product B had the engineering budget, and Product C had the affiliate/influentherrr/astroturf "reviews" budget. An ad for Product A will sometimes inspire me to go find their "B" and buy that. I spent a decent amount of time avoiding "C"s where I can.
 
schmookeeg said:
Anymore I assume Product A has the ad budget, Product B had the engineering budget, and Product C had the affiliate/influentherrr/astroturf "reviews" budget. An ad for Product A will sometimes inspire me to go find their "B" and buy that. I spent a decent amount of time avoiding "C"s where I can.
Click to expand...
Hm, so...
A=Bose
B=David Clark
C=Lightspeed
??
 
A computer hardware review site advertised a tool-set (for working on computers; I-Fix-it if anyone's curious) that made me want one. Have it. It's fine. Works well. Haven't met a computer yet that needed a bit not included in it. I have sufficient ad-blockers installed that I don't see ads. Anywhere. Except when they sponsor a youtube channel I watch, but that's easy enough to skip through. I also don't have TV. The closest thing to advertisement I regularly see now is when I go looking for reviews of things I want or need (like the PSU that arrived today... Sorry @SkyChaser ).
 
2-Bit Speed said:
A computer hardware review site advertised a tool-set (for working on computers; I-Fix-it if anyone's curious) that made me want one. Have it. It's fine. Works well. Haven't met a computer yet that needed a bit not included in it. I have sufficient ad-blockers installed that I don't see ads. Anywhere. Except when they sponsor a youtube channel I watch, but that's easy enough to skip through. I also don't have TV. The closest thing to advertisement I regularly see now is when I go looking for reviews of things I want or need (like the PSU that arrived today... Sorry @SkyChaser ).
Click to expand...

Started reading reviews of cribs, strollers, and diapers yet?
 
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Thursday Boot. Their ads kept coming up in Facebook, and I finally thought about getting a pair (after reading a lot of forum comments). My wife bought me a pair of Thursday Boot lace-ups for Christmas and they quickly became favorites. More are planned as the budget allows. They are actually well-made and a great bang for the buck.

So that’s one ad that worked on me.
 
Sort of...
My mindless go to for noise as I fall asleep is this channel called "Freakin Reviews" This dude reviews As seen on TV products.
Sometimes he will review something and I will go "I need that" I have bought a few things.


This here, I bought straight off a facebook Pop-up ad after my dog died:
1757558296324.png


This I bought after seeing an ad for it on TikTok. ITS AWESOME!


Most of the time, I see ads for stuff I have already purchased.


If you need random stuff to fall asleep to but make you wake up wanting to purchase random stuff, I recommend this cannel:



So um yes, I buy crap that looks cool on the internet but I tend to make sure it isn't crap first.
 
All the ads presented to me are for things I recently bought! Stupid algorithms/AI/whatever decides these things.
 
I quit television a few decades ago mainly b/c of the ads.
Well, there was never anything intelligent or remotely entertaining on but the non-stop ads in which the volume was 2x higher than the shows is what got me. I was paying for them to pipe annoying ads into my peaceful living room!
 
I think you need to add a choice for "downgrade or ignore a product or service because of an ad". That's both personally and professionally.

When I go to some sort of industry meet and greet, the only companies I visit are those that I haven't heard of yet. Same when looking for a product in a new category. I want to know about the new guys who might have something that works. I don't want to buy something that one of the top X companies is selling, that they purchased rather than developed, because I know the original developers are likely on an island somewhere and the product is going to fall apart. But perhaps I've been in IT too long...

On the personal side, particularly with places to eat, if I see an ad I view it as a warning. Perhaps the place you used to go has now become a chain, and the food is getting worse and you just haven't noticed it? If I had to list the two worst things that have happened in the past 50 years, I'd have to say the increase in cancer and franchises. Or maybe franchises are the economic version of cancer?

Funny thing is, I DO notice that I see ads for things I've already recently purchased, or companies I've recently ordered from. Not that the G people would lie to their advertisers and say "see our advertising works, because this guy just bought your stuff" and confusing the order of occurrence.

Product sometimes catches fire? Let's rename it the "safety charger", call out the UL sticker in the picture, and bump up our ad campaign. Our pickup has the lowest payload capacity of anything else in the price range? Let's call it "tough" and have some actors dressed as cowboys drive it around.

I may need some iced tea...
 
If the ad is for a sale or discount I'm at least interested in giving it 3 seconds of my time.

If its just an ad for awareness then no.

I scroll FB and I must see 100 ads a day... I can't tell you what any of them were about.

Major reason I don't use apple products (unless for work or EFB, and that's changing) is that they don't have ANY 3rd party ad blockers.
 
pfarber said:
Major reason I don't use apple products is that they don't have ANY 3rd party ad blockers.
Click to expand...

Sure they do, I use Ka-block. You will get websites complaining about it, most allow you access anyway, occasionally they won’t.
 
AV8R_87 said:
I was ignoring some mind-numbing ads waiting for a video to load, and realized that I don't have a recollection of any of those ads convincing me to buy stuff in the past couple years. If anything, they made me ignore that company/product because of how dumb they were.

So, has anyone been talked into buying a product lately because they saw an ad about it?
Click to expand...
Maybe. Does this count as an Ad..
SixPapaCharlie

Thread 'Chicago Style (NA (unless you are on an airplane))'

So, much like all people, I have heard of Chicago style pizza. The pizza that is the best thing in the world but 1 slice is enough to make you hate yourself for 3 days and keeps the craving at bay for 1/4 of a year. It is a soupy, saucy, pie that combines all of the delight of not eating New York style pizza with the knowledge that NY style pizza is a better.

I went to Chicago yesterday and my co-worker says "You ever have a Chicago dawg?"
"Nope. Never heard of such a thing". He says I will be right back and brings me this thing that defies anything I would ever refer to as a "hot Dog"...
  • Like
 
I hate pharmaceutical ads. They are stupid. But then my son came down with an auto-immune last year and now half the ads are actually tailored towards us. They are still stupid. I dont need an ad to talk to his doctor. Just make the medicine cheaper.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I hate pharmaceutical ads. They are stupid. But then my son came down with an auto-immune last year and now half the ads are actually tailored towards us. They are still stupid. I dont need an ad to talk to his doctor. Just make the medicine cheaper.
Click to expand...
If the medicine were cheaper, who would pay the massive bill to the ad agency?!?! :crazy:

Seriously, though, I am sorry to hear that about your son.
 
Back in the Mad Men days, David Ogilvy of Ogilvy and Mather, said " half of the money spent on advertising is wasted, the trick is knowing which half". This was when it was TV, Radio or Print media only. Suspect the wasted % is more like 90%+ given the low cost of placement on things like youtube and facebook.

OOPS, it was John Wannamaker, retail store owner in London - "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half". I had thought is was Ogilvy for years.
 
If we are talking about pop-up or sidebar ads on websites, no. I barely even notice them and couldn't' tell you 10 seconds later what they were for.
 
Ethics has never been a strong suite of the advertising industry. Cartoon characters selling cigarettes comes to mind.
 
midlifeflyer said:
If we are talking about pop-up or sidebar ads on websites, no. I barely even notice them and couldn't' tell you 10 seconds later what they were for.
Click to expand...
Digger the Dog
Digger, he goes with you when you explore!
Just pull his leash and go for a walk,
He’s your dog for sure!

(No, I didn’t buy it, but when my youngest was trying to figure out a name for her stuffed dog, guess what came to mind.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top