I swear off so many products and services for no other reason than their obnoxious, repetitive commercials.
Off top of my head, I will never buy Old Spice anything because their ads are so repetitive and obnoxious. I feel disgust when I see it in the store and actively avoid it for no other reason than their spam campaigns.
Same for USAA, Native body wash, AmEx, Liberty insurance (that forced catchy theme), and more.
Anyone else feel the same way? Or have you caught yourself getting suckered in because of ads’ subconscious shenanigans?
Yes. If anything, I avoid buying products that I see ads for, period. My ad blocking is pretty extensive, I’d say, so any ads that I do see must have a pretty huge marketing campaign behind them.
I can’t trust that a company can make good products when theyre spending so much conspicuous money just on advertising. Makes me feel like the company is 10% R&D, 90% marketing.
Word of mouth is pretty much the only way I learn about new products, and even then from trusted groups/people. Reddit posts pre-2016 or current, but niche interest communities, are the best for this.
You make a good point I didn’t think about! All that money into advertising that could have gone into the product or better avenues like paying your workers a better wage. And that feeds back into the last part of your comment, that if workers were paid and treated better, I think a lot more workers would take more pride in their work and encourage more customers through word of mouth.
I remember my ex and one other person recently telling me about going to Walmart and having employees explicitly tell customers they would never shop at the store they work for.
That’s crazy! All that money they waste on ads could’ve gone to the employees who would be less likely to trash the company and make them look horrible to shop at.
Versus a place like Costco where I can’t remember ever seeing an ad but treats their employees well enough that employees do encourage people to shop at their stores.