Friend, you are dangerously naive.

I don't have time to write a big long thing about how wrong you are right now, but I'll provide this though:

Santa Claus is a Coke Ad. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-clau...

> Friend, you are dangerously naive.

Tell it to me when I start drinking that colored sugar water. Since I stopped doing it 15 years ago, the thought of it still disgusts me. Maybe I need to give it more time to work...

> Santa Claus is a Coke Ad

For you, maybe. Most people have no idea about that, admittedly fascinating, bit of trivia. The article is called "Things You Never Knew" - and for a reason. It's hard for an ad to work if nobody has any idea what it is advertising. Ah, but of course - it's "subconscious", so all normal laws of the universe are suspended and magic is real.

That version of Santa Claus may have started that way, but it isn't any longer. Kids will grow up today never knowing that it is a Coke advert and will never associate the two until they learn the truth at a later stage of life.

And that version of Santa Claus was still based on fictional folk characters from history.

My point is two-fold: 1. There exists a sophisticated art and science of "subconscious" and it's used extensively in the advertising industry. 2. Even if you isolate yourself from ads personally, there is a huge and largely inescapable effect from rampant commercial advertising.

If the fact that a soda company can suborn an ancient figure like Saint Nick so completely that no one remembers it happened doesn't drive the point home then consider this: Diamond engagement rings are a deliberately ad-created "tradition".

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...

I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

I'm just supporting what the other poster said about advertising not always having the intended effect.

There are some brands I actively avoid simply because I didn't like their advertisements, or how often they advertise and others where no amount of advertising will convince me to use their product (like Coke for example, because I think it tastes vile and I know it's basically just unhealthy sugar water).

Ah, cheers. I think I was a little worked up yesterday. ;-)

And I agree with you about advertising and unintended effects. To me modern life seems more and more like a giant open-ended experiment, one with no control group...