I have pretty much stripped my online prescence of advertising through bowser extensions/paid apps/pi-hole, so it is only the subtle forms left that I have to be sceptical about.
Having to use a service that has obvious advertising is mostly just annoying because I know it’s an advertisment. It is the more subtle forms that you have to be on the lookout for.
There are definitely forms of advertising that work on me, for example the hype surrounding particular video games, reviews on the PSVR2 headset, those kinds of things - because I spent money on them. It is never the blatant advertising that you see on Instagram or television that works on me.
Btw the topic is ads. There are other forms of sneaky marketing like altering search results or placement of goods on shelves in a store, but it’s not that hard to be wary of those too.
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?
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.
I feel you and share your mindset. But most people don’t think about that stuff that way. And ads are not targeted at people like you to begin with, their goal is to reach amd influence the most people possible, but not all of them. Whatever works on the majority is a success.
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.
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.
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.
Add comment