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There's a concept in the marketing world named "reminder advertising." Forgive me if I botch some of the details, but a few decades back Coca-Cola conducted an

There's a concept in the marketing world named "reminder advertising." Forgive me if I botch some of the details, but a few decades back Coca-Cola conducted an experiment where they tracked, in excruciating detail, all coke sales in a small town for a month. Then they turned all the ads off. All the television ads, newspaper ads, all the signs and and all the billboards. Coke sales immediately dropped ~30%. Everyone knows what Coca-Cola is, and yet they have one of the largest advertising budgets in the world. You think that split second decision at the restaurant last week where you asked for a Coke instead of a water, a beer, or a Pepsi was of your own volition, but it very well may have been because you drove past a coke billboard on your way to work that morning, or because you saw a commercial a couple weeks ago. Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them, but human psychology is tremendously complex and chock-full of easily exploitable bugs.

asdff 7y ago
Or that pepsi bought up all the new ad space that month, or just de facto became the only beverage advertiser, and reaped the benefits. The real experiment would be for everyone in the beverage sector to stop advertising for a month and see what equilibrium is reached.
pascalxus 7y ago
but it needs to be a reminder for something you actually want. I've never purchased a coco-cola or any other soda in my entire life and never will, no matter how much they advertise to me. Now, if they advertised some nice veggies or fresh fruit that could work but how often do you see ads for that? and how much are those veggies going to cost after all that advertisement? will it be cost effective in comparison to the veggies that didn't advertise? (i'm guessing not, otherwise they'd have done it by now, right?) Ads are targeted at the masses. If most/all your interests deviate from the norm, ads won't be effective.

asdff 7y ago

Or that pepsi bought up all the new ad space that month, or just de facto became the only beverage advertiser, and reaped the benefits. The real experiment would be for everyone in the beverage sector to stop advertising for a month and see what equilibrium is reached.

pascalxus 7y ago

but it needs to be a reminder for something you actually want. I've never purchased a coco-cola or any other soda in my entire life and never will, no matter how much they advertise to me. Now, if they advertised some nice veggies or fresh fruit that could work but how often do you see ads for that? and how much are those veggies going to cost after all that advertisement? will it be cost effective in comparison to the veggies that didn't advertise? (i'm guessing not, otherwise they'd have done it by now, right?) Ads are targeted at the masses. If most/all your interests deviate from the norm, ads won't be effective.