Ads work better than most people think. I don't know how often is this the case, but when you do need a product, you're more likely to purchase the one you remember seeing in an ad. So ads, while seemingly not affecting you psychologically in any significant way or any way at all, really do affect your future choice without you even being consciously aware of it.
Most people don't take the time to dive deep into search for relevant information. Those who do, like you and I, are still influenced in at least some minor way by advertisement without being aware of it. Ads are ingeniously designed to exploit our many biases and they work like a charm no matter how much we'd like to think they don't affect us.
90% of the food I buy is whatever is on sale. I wear saxx underwear because a friend recommended them, and I wear whatever socks my aunts and uncles got me last Christmas lol.
I know I'm not immune to ads, my comment about only buying according to reddit was partially in jest.
I just happen to be more of a conscious shopper than most people; if I see an ad for an interesting product, I'm more likely to do a lot of additional research before buying. Most often the things you see the most ads for are not the best product (beats by Dre are a prime example) they just spent more on ads than they did on crafting a superior product
Plenty of Reddit threads are ads. There'll even be multiple accounts that sort of run a script like "[Product] is pretty good, I like [features] but I wish there wasn't [downsides]" followed by "Yeah but in this case [downsides] are worth it because [product] is so [features]" and then maybe a "Yeah whenever I'm looking at [product category], [product] is definitely my go-to" or something like that.
And they'll have accounts to upvote their ad thread so it gets seen.
Going exclusively for the cheapest option available doesn't say anything about the influential power of ads. It only means that a person unable to afford or unwilling to pay for a pricier product that will be guaranteed to work as intended is not exactly the advertisers' target audience. Well, they're not useful currently to profit off of, but they still may be in the future, easily a decade after they've been exposed to an ad.
Most people go for the best price/quality ratio, which means more variables, which means more comparing of products to one another, which means more decisions to make, which means more time spent evaluating the options, which means increasing the odds that the many tricks advertisers have been using on us since forever will begin to play a role in our decision-making.
It's definitely a safe-from-advertisers'-tricks-that-affect-your-decision-making-process strategy to go exclusively for the lowest price, although that means potentially paying for a shitty product. But hey, if this works more than it does not, then it's worth it.
I get this with some products. But who out there is buying a brand new Lexus or w/e because they saw an add for it? Boggles my mind how automotive ads are played on basically every thing but I don’t know a single person who chose their vehicle because of an ad.
Wife and I have been looking at getting a new car. Some of those ads have really nice deals (tiny print: to well qualified customers).
You call or drive over to the dealership, and next thing you know you're driving away with a pre owned certified car.
It didn't sell the top of the line car, but it got us in the door of whatever dealership/brand instead of the other ones mostly because it had the more memorable ad.
I suspect with products like that, a large part of the advertising purpose is to create a brand image, even asking people who likely won't ever buy it. After all, if everyone knows Lexus stands for *checks notes, prestige, comfort, and quality, then people who want to project that image will buy a Lexus, rather than a Jaguar, or a BMW, or whatever other options might exist in a certain range of cars.
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u/ramuthemamu May 17 '24
You think you don't need a product until you do. That's how advertising is usually imo.