Do ads convince you to buy stuff?

[Larry in TN]

I voted "Maybe" because it is a very small percentage of advertisements that lead me to buy. Maybe that's true for everybody. I have bought a number of things that I didn't know existed due to Facebook ads and, for almost all of them, I was happy with the product and glad to have found it.

does not make you want to ask your doctor if Zyflorbaprexicol is right for you?

I would ask my Doctor but I haven't figured out how to pronounce it yet!

Anybody else here spend a penny to get 10 CDs from Columbia house?

You're showing your (lack of) age.

I did Columbia House in the 1980s to build my vinyl LP collection. Then did it again in the late 1990s to build my CD collections. In 2021, thanks to Spotify, I sold most of both at my parent's estate auction.

IIRC, you'd buy the first bunch for a penny, then the first one of your commitment for $1.99, or something like that.

There was a time where you'd tape your penny to the order form before mailing it in. Those order forms, of course, were ads from magazines.

Who remembers mailing in order forms from catalogs with a check and having no clue how many weeks you'd have to wait to receive it? In the '70s, I think my favorites were Edmund Scientific and Heathkit.

 

[Albany Tom]

I miss Heathkit. 80's for me. Still have some of them. I hate ads but do miss some of those companies and catalogs. Ed Sci, too. And JC Witney.

 

[Brad W]

do miss some of those companies and catalogs

I miss catalogs too.
or maybe it's the free time we used to have back then, that I miss.... with only three TV channels and no little screens to distract us, we didn't feel so silly about mindlessly flipping through a Sears catalog while sitting on the john

A few days ago we received a catalog in the mail... a big thick one from ULine. I don't think taht we've ever ordered from them but somehow my wife's business got on their list.
Anyway, my daughter, who's a senior in high school has never really seen things like that. She commented on this huge book sitting in the stack of junk mail sitting on the counter...sort of suprised that they would send it for free.
I was telling her that I used to actually enjoy looking through catalogs like this. It's how I learned the names of lots of different specialty tools and hardware, looking through catalogs such as Grainger, MSC, etc... there was a lab supply company that used to send out big catalogs...was it called Omega? I feel like I learned a lot from flipping through those things back in the day. Even with stupid stuff like Spencer's Gifts

and now with the internet, things I see are much more limited to my search terms. I find that I don't just "flip to random pages" showing things that I'm not even looking for, and I never knew that I needed to know about...

 

[Half Fast]

I miss catalogs too.
or maybe it's the free time we used to have back then, that I miss.... with only three TV channels and no little screens to distract us, we didn't feel so silly about mindlessly flipping through a Sears catalog while sitting on the john

A few days ago we received a catalog in the mail... a big thick one from ULine. I don't think taht we've ever ordered from them but somehow my wife's business got on their list.
Anyway, my daughter, who's a senior in high school has never really seen things like that. She commented on this huge book sitting in the stack of junk mail sitting on the counter...sort of suprised that they would send it for free.
I was telling her that I used to actually enjoy looking through catalogs like this. It's how I learned the names of lots of different specialty tools and hardware, looking through catalogs such as Grainger, MSC, etc... there was a lab supply company that used to send out big catalogs...was it called Omega? I feel like I learned a lot from flipping through those things back in the day. Even with stupid stuff like Spencer's Gifts

and now with the internet, things I see are much more limited to my search terms. I find that I don't just "flip to random pages" showing things that I'm not even looking for, and I never knew that I needed to know about...

Embrace your sense of nostalgia and request a catalog from Aircraft Spruce. It’s aviation’s equivalent of the old Sears Wishbook.

 

[judypilot]

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.

I had that happened to me once when they called at 6 in the morning so I was only half awake when I answered. Fortunately, I was able to warn the relevant financial institution before anything happened, so there were no consequences, but it made me even warier than I usually am.

 

[judypilot]

It depends. If it's something I've been looking for/need, I'm likely to check out the advertised version, but I will also research other versions (one of the joys of living in a wealthy capitalist society is we have multiple choices of most products). If it's something I don't want, I'm not going to suddenly want it. If the ad is annoying, I will actively avoid the product. If the ad is for something I can't get myself (e.g., prescriptions), I will be annoyed. I would never ask a doctor about a prescription based on an ad. I can only imagine what it's like for a doctor to have a patient say, "I saw this drug advertised on TV...."

I think the most puzzling (to me) trend in drug advertising the last few years is the advertisements for conditions are really aren't all that common. I guess they're common enough for the ads to be worth it to the companies, but I also wonder about their effect on people who are hypochondriacs.

 

[Half Fast]

but I also wonder about their effect on people who are hypochondriacs.

Merck just brought out a new medication for people suffering from chronic hypochondria. It's called "PlaaSeeBow" and has minimal side effects, but I believe it's rather expensive.

 

[Albany Tom]

It depends. If it's something I've been looking for/need, I'm likely to check out the advertised version, but I will also research other versions (one of the joys of living in a wealthy capitalist society is we have multiple choices of most products). If it's something I don't want, I'm not going to suddenly want it. If the ad is annoying, I will actively avoid the product. If the ad is for something I can't get myself (e.g., prescriptions), I will be annoyed. I would never ask a doctor about a prescription based on an ad. I can only imagine what it's like for a doctor to have a patient say, "I saw this drug advertised on TV...."

I think the most puzzling (to me) trend in drug advertising the last few years is the advertisements for conditions are really aren't all that common. I guess they're common enough for the ads to be worth it to the companies, but I also wonder about their effect on people who are hypochondriacs.

I don't mean this sarcastically. It wouldn't surprise me if they were the actual target market. They won't go to the doctor and say "I saw an ad". They'll research the condition and its symptoms, and convince themselves that they have those symptoms. THEN they'll go to a doctor or nurse practitioner. And that medication won't be to cure the condition, it will be to treat the symptoms, forever. While on the medication, those people will report that their symptoms have completely gone away. All a complete waste of everyone's time, and at a detriment to all everyone except those behind the scheme.

Drug companies should not, in my opinion, be allowed to advertise at all. Free speech isn't a corporate right. And the patent for treatments to diseases should be limited to about a month. We need to disincentivize that kind of behavior until we see a couple of the players driven out of the market. Just my opinion. I'm all for a capitalistic economy, love it, but we need some types of businesses and business models to regularly go away, just as you'd get rid of the weeds in a garden. Sometimes that takes a little push...and pharma doesn't need a push, it needs to be sliced into little pieces.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Ok. Just tossed out 0.1 AMU.

Kept seeing ads for the Element fire extinguisher on the book of face - at first glance it looked like a total scam. Then I got curious. Read how it is supposed to work. Maybe? Then found a few demonstrations on the tube of you. Seems like it would be a good choice for the cockpit at a lot lower cost than other "non-destructive" alternatives. Hope I never find out.

edit: It will fill the cockpit full of "vapor" if you light it off in flight. But, on the other hand, you are most likely to need / be able to use it on the ground.

 

[Half Fast]

Ok. Just tossed out 0.1 AMU.

Kept seeing ads for the Element fire extinguisher on the book of face - at first glance it looked like a total scam. Then I got curious. Read how it is supposed to work. Maybe? Then found a few demonstrations on the tube of you. Seems like it would be a good choice for the cockpit at a lot lower cost than other "non-destructive" alternatives. Hope I never find out.

I considered one of those, but it looked like it might be awkward to use in the cockpit. Plus, once it starts it will discharge 100% over about 50 seconds. No stopping it if 20 seconds puts the fire out. Not sure that’s necessarily a good thing.

But if you have opportunity to try it, let us know how it does.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Drug companies should not, in my opinion, be allowed to advertise at all.

Well, not to the general public. To medical professionals, yes. When there is a new medicine or indication, the professionals need to be advised about that it exists, how to use it, how not to use it, side effects, and so forth. Some people will call this information "advertising".

And the patent for treatments to diseases should be limited to about a month.

By the time a medicine is brought to market, most of its patent life is expired. Patents last 20 years, but medicines take 10-15 years to bring to market because they are patented during discovery, long before clinical trials. So a drug might have only 5-10 years of protection, while other products from other industries have a much longer time of exclusivity after being brought to market, often nearly the full 20 years There are ways to extend exclusivity for a medicine, such as patenting new delivery methods and that might be part of any "reform"

We need to disincentivize that kind of behavior until we see a couple of the players driven out of the market.

There aren't many pharma companies left any more. Most of them combined in the 1990's and early in this century. There's a lot of drug discovery companies but their business model is to discover a new medicine, take it into initial clinical trials, and then sell it to one of the large players. That statement above seems to contradict the comment below- driving players out of the market means fewer companies, yet the comment below suggests there should be more of them:

...and pharma doesn't need a push, it needs to be sliced into little pieces.

I agree with you that there needs to be reform here. I worked for big pharma, and I still work with people in the various pharma firms, big and small. Note that there is a lot of research done, but very few molecules make it to clinical trials at all. Even though most compounds fail, the time, materials, and scientists still need to be paid for for those efforts, and the few successes that hit the market have to carry that load.

While I don't know your specific issue(s) with pharma companies, I will agree that the current system is far from perfect.

 

[DaleB]

8-tracks. Get off my lawn.

Albums, whippersnapper.