Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by likpok on Sunday January 03, 2021 @03:08PM (#25624770)

Part of the claim is that the people who are checking are ad execs who, if PepsiCo stopped buying ads, would shortly be out of a job (or have their budget and influence slashed). A counter to this might be that different advertising channels are likely not identically effective, and a TV ad exec has a big incentive to poke holes in non-TV ads.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by toast0 on Sunday January 03, 2021 @03:44PM (#25625059)

See the Pepsi Refresh Project of 2010. Where Pepsi redirected a sizable amount of ad budget (including super bowl ads) to community projects. They abandonded this strategy after a while because they lost market share.

This is the biggest large scale test of advertising I'm aware of. But it probably doesn't apply to all products.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by amelius on Sunday January 03, 2021 @05:03PM (#25625672)

They only lost market share because everybody else was still using advertising. Therefore, this is not a test in favor of advertising (only in the prisoner's dilemma sense).

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by rocqua on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:11PM (#25626177)

If advertising is an arms race with more total cost than total benefit, that would be an argument that advertising works. Because anyone, at any given time, will benefit from running advertising.

It also means advertising is a net loss to society, but that is separate from the question 'does advertising work'

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by xapata on Sunday January 03, 2021 @11:12PM (#25627863)

> net loss to society

Not so clear, especially before internet search engines existed. As a consumer, I find it useful to know what's available for me to purchase.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by amelius on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:36PM (#25626353)

I think you rephrased my comment, yes.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by pkalinowski on Sunday January 03, 2021 @05:57PM (#25626063)

So advertising works? If it didn't, those buying ads would not take the pepsi market share

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by andrewflnr on Sunday January 03, 2021 @09:17PM (#25627307)

If you're running a company, "just stop being in a prisoner's dilemma" is not one of your options.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by otabdeveloper4 on Sunday January 03, 2021 @03:12PM (#25624804)

PepsiCo has third-party auditors that they employ to check the checkers.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by soared on Sunday January 03, 2021 @03:32PM (#25624950)

Yeah that is what is usually given as the reason so I was getting at a gung-ho CEO, CFO, CRO, Consultant, etc.

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