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If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. S

If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. Some example: * You don't need to change toothbrush every 6 months, that's BS. Toothbrushes are plastic they are going to last hundreds of year more after we are all dead. * You don't need to put so much toothpaste on your toothbrush, it was Colgate ads that started showing people putting a fat and thick long toothpaste on toothbrushes to encourage more use/consuming of toothpaste. * The alkasetzer guys wanted to double sells, what did they do started showing commercials of people throwing 2 tablets instead of one. * Also shampoo and hairproducts, they started showing people putting a ton of shampoo in their hands and making bubbles in their head. Actually you don't need that much shampoo.

dmurray 9y ago
I'm sure you're right in general, but I notice a huge difference between a new toothbrush and one that's I've used for a couple of months. The bristles are stiffer and straighter. If my gums are sensitive, the new one will make them bleed, which is probably a good thing. Sure, it hasn't physically decomposed, but there's no reason to expect a $1 piece of plastic to keep the same performance after hundreds of thousands of abrasions in a wet, acidic, bacteria-ridden environment.
- mstade 9y ago
  Bleeding gums are NOT a good thing. Bleeding gums may be a sign of inflammation, gingivitis, which ultimately could lead to loss of teeth if untreated. Always go with the softest brush you can find, to spare your gums, and also try not to use all that much tooth paste. You really don't need more than just a thin flat spread over the brush, or a ball about the size of a small pea. If your gums often bleed after brushing, you should go see a dentist. Even if it doesn't happen every day, please go. Source: my father is a dentist and I worked for him a number of years in the past, so picked up a few things.
  - l0b0 9y ago
    He's not my dad, but that's pretty much exactly the opposite of what my dentist said. Yes, healthy gums don't bleed, but if they do that's usually a sign you're not brushing enough.
    - mstade 9y ago
      I'm struggling to see how what you're saying is the opposite of what I'm saying – bleeding gums are bad, period. You can be brushing every day and still have bleeding gums, probably because your brush is too hard but possibly because of bacterial build up causing inflammation. A dentist will do a simple test to check your gums and can tell you straight away whether your gums are ok or not. My point being, bleeding gums are just not a good thing, ever. It doesn't have to mean you have gingivitis, you could just have nicked them with too hard a brush or whatever, but you should still look it up if it happens regularly when brushing or flossing. And obviously you should brush at least twice a day, and also floss daily (full disclosure: I'm a hypocrite on the flossing, but I try to be better) – if you eat / drink particularly acidic foodstuffs you'd do well in brushing after ingesting this as well. Brushing after every meal can be inconvenient or even difficult (I don't always bring a tooth brush to dinner) but some sugar free chewing gums are a decent enough substitute.
      - lostcolony 9y ago
        Bleeding gums are a bad symptom is what you're agreeing on. You're saying "That should never happen". He's saying "That's nice, but frequently when I switch to a new toothbrush it happens". Meaning that his old one was no longer cleaning his gums properly. Hence his original proposition that one needs to change toothbrushes more every few months.
  - Sleeep 9y ago
    You misunderstood the post you are replying to. Gums bleeding with a new toothbrush means the old one wasn't cleaning well and the "good thing" is it's a good thing the switch was made as now the oral hygiene is improved.
seanwilson 9y ago
> If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. I'm aware ads influence everyone in some form, I just don't think the influence is so strong to me that it's going to make me do anything majorly against my best interests. > Some example: * You don't need to change toothbrush every 6 months, that's BS. Toothbrushes are plastic they are going to last hundreds of year more after we are all dead. * You don't need to put so much toothpaste on your toothbrush, it was Colgate ads that started showing people putting a fat and thick long toothpaste on toothbrushes to encourage more use/consuming of toothpaste. * The alkasetzer guys wanted to double sells, what did they do started showing commercials of people throwing 2 tablets instead of one. * Also shampoo and hairproducts, they started showing people putting a ton of shampoo in their hands and making bubbles in their head. Actually you don't need that much shampoo. My issue with these examples are 1. these kinds of products are cheap and 2. using a bit more than you need isn't likely to have negative impacts, so therefore I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time into researching these things. For expensive and important products (e.g. laptop, phone, mortgage, anything to do with health) I'm going to treat ads as a very bias source and look for more objective sources.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  But that's exactly the trick. Stuff that people consider very expensive and important (like laptops, homes, etc.) will always get scrutiny. Marketing departments in those areas look for different solutions. But if some companies can make everyone pay 2x for cheap things you use daily, that still is 2x the profits for them (and a 2x expense for you, which you may not notice because it's made from small amounts distributed over time).
  - seanwilson 9y ago
    > But that's exactly the trick. Stuff that people consider very expensive and important (like laptops, homes, etc.) will always get scrutiny. Marketing departments in those areas look for different solutions. But if some companies can make everyone pay 2x for cheap things you use daily, that still is 2x the profits for them (and a 2x expense for you, which you may not notice because it's made from small amounts distributed over time). I really just don't feel it's a big deal and I tend to avoid big brands. It's not time efficient to scrutinise every small purchase anyway when most of those kinds of products are roughly the same. I'm not going to get tricked into spending so much money on toothpaste, shampoo etc. that it will have an negative impact on my life. Yes, I understand ads influence, but I think people go really over the top about it using terms like "brainwashing" and "unethical".
J-dawg 9y ago
This is a great point, and I wish stuff like this was talked about more often. I think I often naively assume that advertising only exists to encourage us to buy one product in preference to another. Of course, as you say, it's much more insidious than that: they are aiming to change cultural norms about the use of their products. It doesn't matter if that helps their competitors too - if they grow the overall size of the toothpaste market then it's worth it. I'm sure there are many more examples like the ones you mentioned. The most famous one I can think of is the notion of diamond engagement rings being invented by a diamond company. I wouldn't be surprised if conversations like the one in this comedy sketch really do happen [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0
- lostcolony 9y ago
  Deodorant occurred because of marketing - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/14/odorono-ads-made-us-realize-we-needed-deodorant/97922010/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/14/odorono-ads-m... A more modern attempt, selling women on the need for douching, largely failed.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    I guess if you shower twice a day, live in a cool climate and have a sedentary lifestyle, you're probably OK. But for the rest of us, having a helping hand to cover up excessive BO is actually quite helpful.
    - mcv 9y ago
      It is exactly that attitude that's the result of advertising. People didn't always think that body odor stank.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        I wouldn't say I'm outright rank-smelling at the end of a day, but it's not a pleasing scent. Personally, I avoid the over-perfumed variants, I prefer something that just cuts down on odor, without adding too much of its own. There's a nice line of perfume-free soaps and such available here, under the brand name "Neutral". I also don't poop in a hole in the ground.
FussyZeus 9y ago
> If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. -OR-, you're an ad blocker who's been an ad blocker for a long time. When you aren't exposed to that crap on a very regular basis, if you're like me for example who uses paid apps for nearly everything on my phone and an ad blocker on all but a very small number of websites I trust, seeing ads can actually be weird. The only app I use that has them is a biking fitness app where the only way to get rid of the ads is packaged with a bunch of other features that aren't worth the $99.99 a year subscription fee, so I almost never see them except for this one app and it's genuinely weird when it happens.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lloeki 9y ago
> You don't need to change toothbrush every 6 months, that's BS. Toothbrushes are plastic they are going to last hundreds of year more after we are all dead Probably dead from the fauna that healthily develops on the toothbrush after some time ;) But the toothbrush will survive indeed.

dmurray 9y ago

I'm sure you're right in general, but I notice a huge difference between a new toothbrush and one that's I've used for a couple of months. The bristles are stiffer and straighter. If my gums are sensitive, the new one will make them bleed, which is probably a good thing. Sure, it hasn't physically decomposed, but there's no reason to expect a $1 piece of plastic to keep the same performance after hundreds of thousands of abrasions in a wet, acidic, bacteria-ridden environment.

mstade 9y ago
Bleeding gums are NOT a good thing. Bleeding gums may be a sign of inflammation, gingivitis, which ultimately could lead to loss of teeth if untreated. Always go with the softest brush you can find, to spare your gums, and also try not to use all that much tooth paste. You really don't need more than just a thin flat spread over the brush, or a ball about the size of a small pea. If your gums often bleed after brushing, you should go see a dentist. Even if it doesn't happen every day, please go. Source: my father is a dentist and I worked for him a number of years in the past, so picked up a few things.
- l0b0 9y ago
  He's not my dad, but that's pretty much exactly the opposite of what my dentist said. Yes, healthy gums don't bleed, but if they do that's usually a sign you're not brushing enough.
  - mstade 9y ago
    I'm struggling to see how what you're saying is the opposite of what I'm saying – bleeding gums are bad, period. You can be brushing every day and still have bleeding gums, probably because your brush is too hard but possibly because of bacterial build up causing inflammation. A dentist will do a simple test to check your gums and can tell you straight away whether your gums are ok or not. My point being, bleeding gums are just not a good thing, ever. It doesn't have to mean you have gingivitis, you could just have nicked them with too hard a brush or whatever, but you should still look it up if it happens regularly when brushing or flossing. And obviously you should brush at least twice a day, and also floss daily (full disclosure: I'm a hypocrite on the flossing, but I try to be better) – if you eat / drink particularly acidic foodstuffs you'd do well in brushing after ingesting this as well. Brushing after every meal can be inconvenient or even difficult (I don't always bring a tooth brush to dinner) but some sugar free chewing gums are a decent enough substitute.
    - lostcolony 9y ago
      Bleeding gums are a bad symptom is what you're agreeing on. You're saying "That should never happen". He's saying "That's nice, but frequently when I switch to a new toothbrush it happens". Meaning that his old one was no longer cleaning his gums properly. Hence his original proposition that one needs to change toothbrushes more every few months.
- Sleeep 9y ago
  You misunderstood the post you are replying to. Gums bleeding with a new toothbrush means the old one wasn't cleaning well and the "good thing" is it's a good thing the switch was made as now the oral hygiene is improved.

seanwilson 9y ago

> If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. I'm aware ads influence everyone in some form, I just don't think the influence is so strong to me that it's going to make me do anything majorly against my best interests. > Some example: * You don't need to change toothbrush every 6 months, that's BS. Toothbrushes are plastic they are going to last hundreds of year more after we are all dead. * You don't need to put so much toothpaste on your toothbrush, it was Colgate ads that started showing people putting a fat and thick long toothpaste on toothbrushes to encourage more use/consuming of toothpaste. * The alkasetzer guys wanted to double sells, what did they do started showing commercials of people throwing 2 tablets instead of one. * Also shampoo and hairproducts, they started showing people putting a ton of shampoo in their hands and making bubbles in their head. Actually you don't need that much shampoo. My issue with these examples are 1. these kinds of products are cheap and 2. using a bit more than you need isn't likely to have negative impacts, so therefore I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time into researching these things. For expensive and important products (e.g. laptop, phone, mortgage, anything to do with health) I'm going to treat ads as a very bias source and look for more objective sources.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 9y ago
But that's exactly the trick. Stuff that people consider very expensive and important (like laptops, homes, etc.) will always get scrutiny. Marketing departments in those areas look for different solutions. But if some companies can make everyone pay 2x for cheap things you use daily, that still is 2x the profits for them (and a 2x expense for you, which you may not notice because it's made from small amounts distributed over time).
- seanwilson 9y ago
  > But that's exactly the trick. Stuff that people consider very expensive and important (like laptops, homes, etc.) will always get scrutiny. Marketing departments in those areas look for different solutions. But if some companies can make everyone pay 2x for cheap things you use daily, that still is 2x the profits for them (and a 2x expense for you, which you may not notice because it's made from small amounts distributed over time). I really just don't feel it's a big deal and I tend to avoid big brands. It's not time efficient to scrutinise every small purchase anyway when most of those kinds of products are roughly the same. I'm not going to get tricked into spending so much money on toothpaste, shampoo etc. that it will have an negative impact on my life. Yes, I understand ads influence, but I think people go really over the top about it using terms like "brainwashing" and "unethical".

J-dawg 9y ago

This is a great point, and I wish stuff like this was talked about more often. I think I often naively assume that advertising only exists to encourage us to buy one product in preference to another. Of course, as you say, it's much more insidious than that: they are aiming to change cultural norms about the use of their products. It doesn't matter if that helps their competitors too - if they grow the overall size of the toothpaste market then it's worth it. I'm sure there are many more examples like the ones you mentioned. The most famous one I can think of is the notion of diamond engagement rings being invented by a diamond company. I wouldn't be surprised if conversations like the one in this comedy sketch really do happen [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0

lostcolony 9y ago
Deodorant occurred because of marketing - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/14/odorono-ads-made-us-realize-we-needed-deodorant/97922010/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/14/odorono-ads-m... A more modern attempt, selling women on the need for douching, largely failed.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I guess if you shower twice a day, live in a cool climate and have a sedentary lifestyle, you're probably OK. But for the rest of us, having a helping hand to cover up excessive BO is actually quite helpful.
  - mcv 9y ago
    It is exactly that attitude that's the result of advertising. People didn't always think that body odor stank.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      I wouldn't say I'm outright rank-smelling at the end of a day, but it's not a pleasing scent. Personally, I avoid the over-perfumed variants, I prefer something that just cuts down on odor, without adding too much of its own. There's a nice line of perfume-free soaps and such available here, under the brand name "Neutral". I also don't poop in a hole in the ground.

FussyZeus 9y ago

> If you think ads don't work in you it means they are doing a great job in lying to you and deceiving. Ads and marketing are more subtle than you can imagine. -OR-, you're an ad blocker who's been an ad blocker for a long time. When you aren't exposed to that crap on a very regular basis, if you're like me for example who uses paid apps for nearly everything on my phone and an ad blocker on all but a very small number of websites I trust, seeing ads can actually be weird. The only app I use that has them is a biking fitness app where the only way to get rid of the ads is packaged with a bunch of other features that aren't worth the $99.99 a year subscription fee, so I almost never see them except for this one app and it's genuinely weird when it happens.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lloeki 9y ago

> You don't need to change toothbrush every 6 months, that's BS. Toothbrushes are plastic they are going to last hundreds of year more after we are all dead Probably dead from the fauna that healthily develops on the toothbrush after some time ;) But the toothbrush will survive indeed.