3 ms·

You know what you need, not what you want. When new products come out, how do you find out about it? Without advertising, do you hope to discover their store on

You know what you need, not what you want. When new products come out, how do you find out about it? Without advertising, do you hope to discover their store on the Internet randomly?

jumpCastle 10y ago
I subscribe to a newsletter of a product recommendation service like wirecutter.com, which provides discovery. Ideally I would be able to pay for this service so that their incentive to provide quality recommendations would align better with the business model
jacquesm 10y ago
> You know what you need, not what you want. That's all I need.
FridgeSeal 10y ago
In the many years I've used the internet, I don't think I've ever seen an add where I've been like "I didn't know I wanted this", and the increasing invasion of privacy from advertisers is not worth the incredibly vague promise of "ads for things you didn't know you wanted". Much like OP, if there's something I want, I go and research it, or use a community or activity related site (Reddit, BikeRadar/Polygon etc), where there's community discussion and conversation on what's good, bad, relative differences etc. For the most part, this means you get the actually better product, not the one with the biggest advertising spend. No it's not a perfect system, but it's far better than being spammed with ads for things I "don't know I want", which is a spectacularly absurd concept.
- Denzel 10y ago
  Let's take a step back. I want to see how you think I should solve this problem... I have a startup with a new product. No one knows about the company or the product, but they have a basic desire. That desire can currently be fulfilled with other options. But our offering is vastly different, in fact it's never been done before, and the only way you can realize you need it is by experiencing it. That's why we started the company. How do I get the product to them? They don't know that they want this product. I can assure you though, once they experience it, they don't know how they lived without it. Although they never thought to ask for it because it was literally an unknown unknown. This isn't a hypothetical, this is a real-world example from my brother's company. And I can tell you, targeted advertisement was insanely effective. I'm open to hear other possible ways to get the same ROI using another method.
  - intrasight 10y ago
    Clearly advertising must work - otherwise companies wouldn't have endeavored to make Google and Facebook multi-billion dollar companies. As for ROI, I've heard mostly that internet ads aren't so good. Lots of ad buy is for brand awareness, and there's no way to quantify ROI.
  - dingaling 10y ago
    > and the only way you can realize you need it is by experiencing it. That is part of the problem with modern advertising: hyperbole. By definition, if people have survived this long without knowing about Product-X then they don't need it. The OP's perspective was that he'd rather not know about Product-X ahead of need-time. If he identified a need or desire for a solution to a problem he would search for "grill-thing that keeps leaves out of drain" or "brace that keeps daffodils upright in the wind" and he'd stumble across your brother's product. So the product marketing strategy would be to place Product-X in places where it would likely be found by people pursuing that particular need or desire. I found myself doing that recently for what transpired to be called a 'tamping rammer'. I appreciate that's not ideal from a corporate perspective when the goal is to 'make' a market by leveraging perceived need, but that's not the primary concern of those who are fatigued by advertising.
    - Denzel 10y ago
      > So the product marketing strategy would be to place Product-X in places where it would likely be found by people pursuing that particular need or desire. That's like... the exact definition of good advertising. And that's what we did.
- bbarn 10y ago
  The "slide belt". Only thing I've ever seen an ad for and realized I wanted it. So, in 25 ish years of being connected to the world on my computer, I've impulse bought one thing.
M_Grey 10y ago
That's... actually what I'm going for. I don't want to discover new wants that I previously didn't have, and which I don't need. I hope not to discover their stores, their endless stores with their endless attempts to sell some minute variation on something old, endless attempts to convince me of a need I don't have, and endless begging for feedback. Fuck. That.
bittercynic 10y ago
The Whole Earth Catalog used to provide that service. I'd like to know if there's a current equivalent.
- intrasight 10y ago
  amazon.com. The Whole Internet Catalog. But I get what you mean - it's not very fun or informative to browse Amazon. I'd say the closest thing are the good product-focused blogs. But they are narrowly focused.
intrasight 10y ago
Ignorance is bliss

You know what you need, not what you want. When new products come out, how do you find out about it? Without advertising, do you hope to discover their store on the Internet randomly?

jumpCastle 10y ago

I subscribe to a newsletter of a product recommendation service like wirecutter.com, which provides discovery. Ideally I would be able to pay for this service so that their incentive to provide quality recommendations would align better with the business model

jacquesm 10y ago

> You know what you need, not what you want. That's all I need.

FridgeSeal 10y ago

In the many years I've used the internet, I don't think I've ever seen an add where I've been like "I didn't know I wanted this", and the increasing invasion of privacy from advertisers is not worth the incredibly vague promise of "ads for things you didn't know you wanted". Much like OP, if there's something I want, I go and research it, or use a community or activity related site (Reddit, BikeRadar/Polygon etc), where there's community discussion and conversation on what's good, bad, relative differences etc. For the most part, this means you get the actually better product, not the one with the biggest advertising spend. No it's not a perfect system, but it's far better than being spammed with ads for things I "don't know I want", which is a spectacularly absurd concept.

Denzel 10y ago
Let's take a step back. I want to see how you think I should solve this problem... I have a startup with a new product. No one knows about the company or the product, but they have a basic desire. That desire can currently be fulfilled with other options. But our offering is vastly different, in fact it's never been done before, and the only way you can realize you need it is by experiencing it. That's why we started the company. How do I get the product to them? They don't know that they want this product. I can assure you though, once they experience it, they don't know how they lived without it. Although they never thought to ask for it because it was literally an unknown unknown. This isn't a hypothetical, this is a real-world example from my brother's company. And I can tell you, targeted advertisement was insanely effective. I'm open to hear other possible ways to get the same ROI using another method.
- intrasight 10y ago
  Clearly advertising must work - otherwise companies wouldn't have endeavored to make Google and Facebook multi-billion dollar companies. As for ROI, I've heard mostly that internet ads aren't so good. Lots of ad buy is for brand awareness, and there's no way to quantify ROI.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > and the only way you can realize you need it is by experiencing it. That is part of the problem with modern advertising: hyperbole. By definition, if people have survived this long without knowing about Product-X then they don't need it. The OP's perspective was that he'd rather not know about Product-X ahead of need-time. If he identified a need or desire for a solution to a problem he would search for "grill-thing that keeps leaves out of drain" or "brace that keeps daffodils upright in the wind" and he'd stumble across your brother's product. So the product marketing strategy would be to place Product-X in places where it would likely be found by people pursuing that particular need or desire. I found myself doing that recently for what transpired to be called a 'tamping rammer'. I appreciate that's not ideal from a corporate perspective when the goal is to 'make' a market by leveraging perceived need, but that's not the primary concern of those who are fatigued by advertising.
  - Denzel 10y ago
    > So the product marketing strategy would be to place Product-X in places where it would likely be found by people pursuing that particular need or desire. That's like... the exact definition of good advertising. And that's what we did.
bbarn 10y ago
The "slide belt". Only thing I've ever seen an ad for and realized I wanted it. So, in 25 ish years of being connected to the world on my computer, I've impulse bought one thing.

M_Grey 10y ago

That's... actually what I'm going for. I don't want to discover new wants that I previously didn't have, and which I don't need. I hope not to discover their stores, their endless stores with their endless attempts to sell some minute variation on something old, endless attempts to convince me of a need I don't have, and endless begging for feedback. Fuck. That.

bittercynic 10y ago

The Whole Earth Catalog used to provide that service. I'd like to know if there's a current equivalent.

intrasight 10y ago
amazon.com. The Whole Internet Catalog. But I get what you mean - it's not very fun or informative to browse Amazon. I'd say the closest thing are the good product-focused blogs. But they are narrowly focused.

intrasight 10y ago

Ignorance is bliss