This is one argument I've used in my head for ad blockers - you're removing hostile viewers so it might be a net win. It's like dropping flyers in a "no junk mail" box. I wonder if anyone studied it.

Advertisers would love to skip uninterested viewers, the problem is that someone else, in this case youtube, wants that money from the advertiser for your eye balls. I normally don’t mind the model of ads for free service but it’s a sewer of interminable garbage that is also dangerous to be exposed to (bad scripts and stuff).

> interminable garbage that is also dangerous to be exposed to (bad scripts and stuff).

Not really an issue with YT video ads though right? They're just annoying and too frequent but they're not really hazardous (beyond some cognitohazard of random crank stuff).

Ads drive consumerism which comes with a rather large pollution problem, making the only planet we can live on that we know of more and more uninhabitable.

Why would YT video ads be any different ?

They're not running third party JS on your machine; just a video.

AFAIK they don't get to run any scripts on your browser they just get to upload and YT plays the video.

I think advertising still works even on people who don’t like it and prefer that if not.

I know there's lots of empirical studies and literature on this

I believe the rationale is even if say 90% of the viewers who wouldn't buy the product anyway are now less likely to buy the product, That's considered a zero.

However if you're positively influencing the purchasing decisions on that remaining 10%, then it might be money well spent.

Thus the advertising may not affect specifically you but because this is a broadcast style exposure, that doesn't matter

Everyone buys stuff from phones to food.

I think the logic is flawed in thinking this way too. Most products have an overwhelming amount of choice. If you are not in the market for that category of product then the advertisement is not aimed at you. Even if you were annoyed by the the advertisement at that particular moment in time, if you are ever in the market for that category of product then the product will have brand recognition over its competitors and that is what is so huge and valuable.

IMO it is quite like the classic example of the heuristic that there is no such thing as bad press.

Nah, that's long term planning and capital doesn't do that. The incentives are at short term maximization at all costs, including long term stability

Yes but barely. I consider myself a person on whom advertising doesn't work. But then I would prefer international brands in an unfamiliar city simply because I'm getting exactly the experience or the product I already know. But IMO that's not because they advertise out of literally everything, it's because they're international, the consistency is one of the primary benefits of that. (although US McDonald's did disappoint me)

People just like to tell themselves it doesn't work on them because it makes them sound more intelligent. I've yet to actually meet a single person in my life that advertising didn't work on. You just have to talk them through how they decided on the things they own and before long they start to realise the truth.

I never bought an advertised product in my life. If any of the brands I buy starts advertising Im going to look for something else. I look for things, it’s not the other way around.

That sounds almost impossible? Unless you're Amish or something like that.

I suppose they're being a little hyperbolic but honestly plenty of folks just buy off brand generic products at ALDI. Pretty easy to avoid advertised stuff if you just shop at discounters. Popular here in Germany even among people who are well off.

Aldi advertise.

Cudos for you. I try something similar, I do not buy a product if I believe I saw its ads. It is a light version of your strategy (I'm not going to watch ads to know what is advertised and what isn't), but even it doesn't work in all cases. For example, my cat eats advertized food now. Not all of it though, but dry food is advertized.

This is one of the most obviously nonsense statements I’ve ever seen made.

You've never had any major brand of pop, ever?

Ok, I admit I was once a gullible teenager but luckily I didnt have any money then.

Probably tons of things you are missing out on.

Some of the most life-changing products I own were shown to me in an ad. Might not have bought that exact item, but the knowledge of that type of product even existing?!

Mindblowing.

Yeah its kinda the same like torture.

If advertising gives people a negative association with a particular brand, I highly doubt it would increase the odds of those people making a purchase.

Otherwise, Firestone should have seen an increase in tire sales after all the free advertising they got on the news. Instead, though, Firestone tire sales fell off a cliff.

I recently threw away a coupon for a product specifically because I saw a few too many extremely annoying online ads for this product, and now I can't stand the brand. They poisoned my image of them.

Some ML likely doing this: they track your interests, for example you searched adblockers in the past, it goes as a feature to ML model, and model predicts that it is unlikely you will click and make purchase, and they will bid on you much lower, as result you will see lots of cheap junk Ads..

While reading your comment, I thought abouts ads for ad blockers like "hey, we noticed you searched for ad blockers so here are the top 10 best!". That's not a good idea though.

> That's not a good idea though.

I wonder why you say that. At least an ad for a specific ad blocker sounds like a great idea.

- Ideally, you don't send ads to users of your product - Users of inferior products will see your ad, and it might be super effective (if you used MY adblocker, you wouldn't be seeing this ad) - Everything else is a user that doesn't have an ad blocker, and it's probably an easy sell to say "would you like to never see ads like this?"

Could be worth it the price if the top one is an extension you own and lets some specific “partner ads” through.

I can definitely see shady companies doing this.

Show ads for ad-blockers. Deliver an ad-blocker with spyware or other forms of malware.

The anti-malware industry used to be dominated by tools that ended up being malware (I’m sure that hasn’t changed much TBH).

Almost nobody wants to see ads, but ads still probably work on most people.

They probably don't. Forced ad viewing is fundamentally dishonest: they can force the user to watch the ad, but they can't force him to pony up for what is being advertised.

I would say Facebook ads have sold me on a few things. But they are not full page, I can easily identify them and move past should I chose and at times were actually relevant to what I want. How come YouTube ads try and push the dumbest shit on me when they have all my data and know all my searches yet I’m getting ads for stuff I would never buy. So I propose google cut back on some of the video ads, force the video being watched to slim up a bit while no video ads of relevance pop on on the side.

Ads are only meant for certain groups of the population. That's why you never see ads for good products that you would actually want to buy – because people who buy those kind of products make informed purchases by comparing price, features and quality.

We could dream of an internet where companies would advertise their products on relevant videos and be done with that, but they probably won't increase sales that way. Because the audience would buy their product anyway if it fit their needs.

In 2023 there are two methods of marketing:

Method 1 is competing on price, features and quality. Customers will buy your product if it fits their wants and their budget.

Method 2 is advertising, where the product itself has little to no influence on sales. Certain groups of people will buy your product because you've made them feel they should.

It's more likely that you are just a standard consumer that doesn't recognise non-obvious advertising than you only buy products that don't advertise.

How do you or the people doing the comparisons you read know the product exists without advertising?

I don't buy this theory, because in my job we get a lot of new customers every year, and we don't advertise. Other forms of marketing are just so much more effective. Putting your product out there is not the same as advertising, people can find your product by search engine or other means, and then if you compete on price, quality and features, the product is marketed by word of mouth.

Do products show up on your store shelves because the company did a ton of advertising and customers were begging the store manager to sell it? Usually not. Instead these are negotiations between businesses. How often do you see ads for new products, compared to products that have been around for decades?

The only situation were advertising is wise is when you have a product that is not different from your competitors product and you have a customer base that is ignorant, so that you have a lot of margin for advertising to get your stuff moved. Ignorant in this situation can mean just ignorant on the product category.

Running a website to get traffic from a search engine is advertising, it's just not directly paid advertising.

Products often show up on store shelves for two reasons. The product does independent advertising so the store knows it will sell or they advertise to store buyers.

If you think that is the only time advertising makes sense I'm going to assume your employer is very slow growing. Advertising pretty much always makes sense one you have protect market fit. I can't think of a single business that has that which would be worse off with advertising.

If we go down that path, then everything is advertising and the word means nothing. Your label is on your product? Guess that's advertising. But what purpose does word-wrapping have except shutting down conversation?

If advertising was a sure thing as long as you claim, then how come none of the ad sellers can guarantee sales? Until they offer a guaranteed increase in sales or your money back, I have a hard time believing the praise.

I think businesses severely underestimate word of mouth, and overestimate how effective their advertising was. That's understandable, since they don't want to feel like fools for having spent money on worthless advertising.

>Products often show up on store shelves for two reasons. The product does independent advertising so the store knows it will sell or they advertise to store buyers.

From what I know, products show up on shelves because the suppliers let the retailers know about their new products. It's not the store manager deciding to start selling the new Snickers flavour because he saw an ad on a bus stop.

Advertising is anything you do to try and increase the visibility of something.

No single ad is guaranteed and i never made that claim.

Word of mouth is great but an extremely slow way to grow a business and tends to geographically limit you and requires advertising first to get the initial clients.

> From what I know, products show up on shelves because the suppliers let the retailers know about their new products

I cover this scenario with the advertising to store buyers line.

Even if you make the perfect product, you may well have to spend a lot on advertising.

In Fintech, it feels like the first $5 of advertising per customer just goes to persuading them that you're not a scam.

Charities, travel services and perfumes have value propositions often hard to express. Perhaps a perfect communicator could get it across in a short essay, but most rely expensive ads.

There are some domains where customers are well educated & motivated to seek out better products, like consumer electronics & cars, but those are the minority.

I can't disagree with you on charities, since their business is literally begging for money. They're never going to have a "customer" recommending them to friends and family.

Travel and Fintech are products that are for everyone, so there will always be people interested in your stuff and then recommend to their friends if your product is good. Especially for travel, people are always seeking out new "products".

I think it's interesting that you brought up cars. In the past 20 years I've only seen two types of car ads: One is the stylish young woman going on a date, the second type is with young urban adults doing street dance and then the car flashes quickly in the end of the ad. Because advertising is only directed at certain groups. To normal people, these car ads communicate "We hate you" from the car company to the consumer, and would be a net negative for the brand. But since normal people are going to compare price, gas economy and features when buying a car anyway, this brand negativity doesn't mean much.

An interesting feature of car marketing is that - in general - it only targets new car buyers. These people are a relatively small segment of the driving population.

I wonder whether those groups you describe disproportionately purchase mass market new cars.

Those groups can mostly amount to less than 10% of prospective new car buyers, if I'm allowed to speculate. I think that almost everybody who is in the market for a new car will know several persons to give them recommendations and advice. So the ads will only be targeting some people who have a lot of disposable money and few real friends to help them choose a car, and no understanding to compare cars themselves. Maybe the children of rich careerists?

Or it could be that the advertisement and media industry have their heads too far up their own asses to care what they're doing. It certainly seems like this sometimes, when huge brands can destroy themselves permanently in a matter of days with out of touch advertising.

> Forcing someone to watch your ad most likely triggers negative connotations about your brand.

I will give up driving before ever purchasing anything from Liberty Mutual and I caution everyone who will listen that they are a shitty company who will grift you for your last cent precisely because of this. As if watching the same stupid ad for the millionth + 1 time will suddenly make me realize that I WAS WRONG and I CAN'T LIVE without their product.

> Forcing someone to watch your ad most likely triggers negative connotations about your brand.

For a lot of advertisement that is simply not a problem.

Remember those horrible ads for dishwashing detergents or sanitary pads on TV? You probably do and you probably hated them and that was the point.