Well why does McDonalds or Coca-Cola need to advertise? It's not necessarily about getting new customers or raising awareness that McDonalds exists (everyone kn

Well why does McDonalds or Coca-Cola need to advertise? It's not necessarily about getting new customers or raising awareness that McDonalds exists (everyone knows of the brand already). It's about keeping them at the front of your mind. It's called the 'mere exposure' effect [1] where customers increase the intensity of their opinion of your brand just because they're constantly hearing about your brand. It doesn't even matter the content, they can double-dip: if they run an ad telling people to create a Facebook profile the hit both the market of people who don't yet use Facebook and also hit the market of people who do have an account but don't use it as much as Facebook wants you to. Now unfortunately this does work both ways: if you hate Facebook, seeing a Facebook ad will make you more and more irritated with Facebook. But if you think Coca-Cola is good yet don't have strong preference Coke vs Pepsi, seeing Coke ads everywhere will make you think more highly of Coke rather than Pepsi. This is why Coke brands the most ridiculous things, like wall decor, decorative plates, toy trucks, even Christmas. People will gladly hang their ads on the wall and be constantly exposed to Coke advertising. Facebook is banking on people who don't hate Facebook seeing the ads, knowing that people who do hate Facebook are a lost cause anyway... or are being targeted by a different ad campaign to win them back. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect