Does modern advertising work.

Great thread, zany. I will come back later and discuss.

Well it could be said advertising only works if the person seeing the advert buys the product or service it advertises.

In my experience as both a consumer and a business owner, I would say that advertising works on me as a consumer in a very limited way and as a former business owner advertising didn't help me at all. I had a boutique in the late 1980s before the internet or any of the advert heavy google displays and banner ads, etc of today. One had to use pamphlets or the local newspapers. These proved to be hopeless. Even photo fashion shoots in magazines didn't produce results. I remember reading an American at the time (canlt remember where I read it now, too long ago) saying that advertising this way had done nothing for him. Made me feel bit better as it seems to be a feature of small business. Economy at the time was crashing too, so that made things worse.

Today you can have your business online, but you will get lost in the veritable tsunami of adverts for businesses and products. You can have a website but no one will find you and people are reluctant to buy stuff from outfits on the net, understandably as crime in this sector has ballooned.

I closed the shop in 1989. Along with lot of similar others. I had customers but too few.

As a consumer I only look at and might extend my interest to purchase if the product is something I happen to want. I ignore almost 100% of internet ads. I ignore all click bait that has adverts as a backing. I will search the net for products, though. That has been a great help. I tend to chuck all adverts put in the postbox into the recycle without a look. Maybe if I were rich I'd be more interested in buying stuff I don't really need or want. As it is, I just turf ads away.

There is a definite psychology behind advertising success and people with media studies psychology qualifications are employed to advise companies how to structure ads to appeal as well as to make consumers think they should invest.

A problem today is that big companies overwhelm smaller presences on the net. And brand name confidence is a huge factor in getting people o make decisions to buy. So if you're new, or small, you won't get far, even if you are financially able to get yourself onto the front page of ad lists.

I tend to use a ad blocker on my internet browser so don't see a lot of the internet ads.

Only tend to buy stuff I need rather than want and when I do buy something I want I usually know exactly what I want so don't need adverts to persuade me.

I tend to remember an advert, but not the product!

Yes, me too.

My family used to be completely split down the middle on this.

For my dad and I, no amount of advertising in the world, in any form, had any affect on us. We were not swayed by anything we saw and as an example, if we went into a shop to buy a specific item, we came out with that item only and nothing else.

My mum and brother are/were the complete opposite and seemed to be heavily swayed by any ads or promotions they saw, like BOGOF deals etc.

I think its something in the mind and some people are more pliable to advertising than others. The fact that advertisers spend such large sums of money proves it does work on some.

Google....who's that I have almost completely got rid of any Google from my life. Recently I have finally abandoned my gmail which I only really ever used as a junk account anyway a bit like disposable email. I signed up to that before they required any personal info. The only Google account I now have left is YouTube and I hardly ever login to that. I do use Google maps from time to time but no account required for that. I haven't directly used Google search engine for as long as I can remember. I have a completely custom built locked down browser. I haven't seen adverts on the Internet in quite a few years now, not even on YouTube vids including the in content sponsored ad's and self advertising 'please click the like button' etc. I have a few AdBlocking scripts and software in place to deal with everything from the router right up to browser level along with content blocking and I control all the scripts allowed to run in the background on sites. I don't allow content delivery networks like Cloudlfare, Akamai etc and locally host the scripts required. Saves on bandwidth so is eco friendly along with not handing the data over to PRISM. Plus I use containers to prevent cross tab tracking and the rest of it. All cookies, form and site data and history is deleted on browser quit accept for my protected cookies on sites like this.

Advertising does not get to me and if I want anything I will do my own research but only if it's something I need. If anything gets to me it will be the adverts on TV but they will have more of a subliminal effect and mostly food related. The funny thing is I quite like watching the shopping channel late at night / early morning or have it on in the background while working on the computer, especially those lengthy American style ones but I'm not suckered into buying JML products etc. I wont be fooled by the marketing and technology or even peer pressure. I'm to stubborn, argumentative and set in my ways and question everything with a mistrust until I have analysed and researched deeper into it. I don't do Facebook or any social media apart from a few forums and I have Facebook completely blocked including all their silly likes and buttons on websites across the web so they can't fingerprint and track me and create a shadow account, not that they can target any advertising at me as I wont see it. In fact social media buttons in general are always blocked across the web. My web experience is clean and fast with only the necessary content required.

I'm also a heavy outside 5 eyes VPN and Tor user. I don't use a mobile accept for phone calls and text, no internet connection or Bluetooth allowed and to be honest it's hardy ever charged up and I hardly ever use it. So my answer to advertising is to block as much as the source as possible so there is no way it can have any influence. Any advertising that comes through the letterbox is basically junk and doesn't get a second look. Straight in the bin. I don't hand my phone number to anyone accept for family and friends. I don't do any two factor authentication nonsense that requires a mobile so my number can't be sold for advertising and scammers to make phone calls. If a service requires two factor authentication they can shove it where the sun don't shine. I don't follow sport and I'm not a gambler accept for the odd flutter on the Grand National though I haven't done that in years. I don't give any personal details to shops for warranty reasons or do any shopping points cards and the rest of it. Don't get suckered by the sweets dangling on the stick. Even if something is shoved in my face in the shopping aisles in the supermarket I will think there is a reason for that and it's not for my benefit.

The levels of marketing and manipulation is so great that the majority are blind to it from political levels right down to what you buy in the shops and sometimes those two things can be related.

I dont get time to look at tv much with a family and a job. Me and my other half have to work too hard just to stay where we are let alone go out and buy stuff the telly pumps at us. We know what we need, then comes what we want. We get what we need first and when we decide on what we want we look at what the options are. Adverts are a good servant but a rotten master so we look at them but aren't controlled by them. we are looking for a bargain first and foremost.

Product advertising is the last bastion of Con Artists. Half truths ; omissions ; small print ; lies . It's best not to pay attention to all the advertising rubbish we're bombarded with day after day.

Quote from Zany

Do you use Linux?

Sometimes I use a virtual copy of one or two of the Linux distros but I have been a Mac user since the 80's. And in case your wondering Apple are also locked out and I have secured my system.

Oh please I'm no God. I'm just very privacy and security conscious and my understanding of the tech has led me down that path. I have a love hate relationship with it. Loved it so much that I went down the rabbit hole and learnt as much as I can to the point where I now hate it and where it has led us as a society and is continuing to take us. I'm not a programmer but I do dabble in that area as I do all computer based multimedia so cover all bases, some to more degree than others. I started back in the 80's with ClarisWorks and then moved onto Photoshop, Illustrator, Macromedia Director, Dreamweaver, Flash, Lightwave 3D, Final Cut Pro, After Effects and a few others.

Quote from Zany

In an aside with another poster we briefly touched on modern advertising. He said (I paraphrase) that he was the marketeer’s worst nightmare in that he ignored all advertising.

I would like to refute that claim, with the one assumption, that my client does use the internet to find products. I will of course acknowledge if he steps up and says he doesn’t.

Modern advertising if far more sophisticated than it’s ever been in the past. When I started out in business advertising was (for 95% of businesses) limited to a a few things.

Top of the tree was TV, expensive, but if you got it right phenomenal results.

Then there was Radio, Newspapers and street advertising (Hoardings etc.

THEN came Google, simple at first, but now ever more complicated, yet brilliant if you can master the art.

The competition is no longer about who has the better advert or even the better product, now its all about who comes first page on Google.

I am quite well versed in this field and happy to try and answer your questions as well as discuss.

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Yep, that was me Zany, I pride myself on being generally impervious to all attempts to advertise at me with the caveat that if I am looking for something in particular I don't mind what the source of information is. I do qualify that if I am looking for information I don't classify that as being the victim of advertising because I was seeking to be informed. I see advertising as the act of subverting my thoughts and preferences by subtle and not so subtle messaging which I have not solicited.

• I don't read newspapers or magazines.
• I use an adblocker when surfing and refuse to use sites that detect and deny access to people using adblockers
• I time shift all commercial TV and FF on the commercial breaks and done so for years
• I'm not on Facebook so advertising doesn't reach me
• With Google as a matter of personal policy I ignore the sponsored hits at the top of the search, in fact if I actually want to find anything I tend to use another search engine these days as Google slowly spirals into wherever it is going

I would say the only unsolicited advertising that does get through is Billboards which I cannot help noticing and reading as I drive past and radio advertising which I cannot timeshift although the typical radio commercial for metal recycling, builders beams or Covid advice are hardly inspiring me to make a purchase.

I know that advertising is big business but I don't get it today. Going back to the golden years of 70's and 80's advertising the commercials on TV were iconic and often talked about as being better than the shows they interrupted. But could anyone say that now? I have added a compilation of 70's adverts many of which could never be shown now such are the rules.

I can genuinely state that advertisements do not influence me. Like Armitage, I fast forward through any adds on my recordings and I use SVOD to view most things these days.

As for advertisements in newspapers, I just don’t look at them. I think I’m hard-wired to ignore them. I also look for products sometimes on Google, but ignore the ad-sponsored ones.

I do look at posters sometimes because I’ve nothing else to do while walking or stopped in traffic, but only to see if they are funny. I can’t say I have ever seen a poster and thought “Oh, yes, I’ll buy one of them”.

So, genuinely, adverts are wasted on me. And I only get attracted to a ‘special offer’ in a shop if it is something I actually need at the time.