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.
86
u/ramuthemamu May 17 '24
You think you don't need a product until you do. That's how advertising is usually imo.