"They're talking about a specific kind of advertising, what we would call "brand awareness" advertising. The objective is, as they say, not to get you to do any

"They're talking about a specific kind of advertising, what we would call "brand awareness" advertising. The objective is, as they say, not to get you to do anything, but rather to shift your perception (implicitly or explicitly) about a product or brand. Alone, it doesn't do much of anything. Matched with direct-response, promotions, events, point-of-sale, etc ... it can be powerful. But this is a tool for mass market consumer packaged goods and the like, not your niche startup." I think there is another principle that comes into play even for a niche startup. An startup gets initial publicity maybe from TC or HN or even mainstream media. I think it then needs to spend money on brand awareness advertising to keep itself from becoming "out of site out of mind". Unless of course it's mentioned everyday in the news (like Twitter). My question to you (as the ad person) is do you think that a company like myspace could have prevented their decline at least somewhat by investing in brand awareness advertising meant counter Facebooks rise? (Forgetting for a second the things they failed to do or need to fix).