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According to a GfK Study from April 2021, asking 1001 Germans between 18 and 74, the largest influences on purchasing decisions were: - personal recommendation

According to a GfK Study from April 2021, asking 1001 Germans between 18 and 74, the largest influences on purchasing decisions were: - personal recommendations from friends (35,5%) - independent comparison tests (30,5%) - amazon reviews (23,2%) - media reports (13,7%) - corporate information, including advertising (10,0%)

satvikpendem 4y ago
Many of those can include advertising, such as Amazon placement and reviews, media reports (many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets), personal recommendations, and even independent comparison tests (people see an ad, and research it more thoroughly including seeing how it fares on comparison tests, and perhaps tell their friends too). I am not saying that the tests themselves are not independent, nor that people don't use them to make purchasing decisions, but the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. Clearly, even in Germany, ads exist, and if they did not work, then the ads would not exist.
- kuschku 4y ago
  > such as Amazon […] reviews > many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets > personal recommendations Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Reviews may only be the personal opinion of people who provably purchased the product. False reviews are fraud and explicitly a criminal act. Placing ads in media without explicitly marking it clearly and obviously an ad, so-called “native advertising”, is explicitly a criminal act. > the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. My original argument was that advertising isn't necessary. I think after this discussion it's become obvious that there are many other working and prevalent ways to discover products. In fact, all advertising does is distort and corrupt those existing methods, trying to get me to spend more money than necessary on a worse product. Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    > Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Not really. Yes, ads must be clearly stated, but oftentimes news outlets are just looking for stories to run, which are not compensated with free product or money, and thus are not subject to such advertising laws (in the US). With regards to reviews, I don't mean that reviews are paid, rather that Amazon charges companies to be "sponsored" and if people buy those and review them, their review was at least partially influenced by buying the top sponsored product. Same with personal recommendations, not sure how you can construe it as fraud or unethicality if I see a Coke ad, buy it, and recommend it to my friends. > Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead. It is clear that you don't work on any products that make money, or at least aren't in any of the non-technical sales or marketing roles, or are not a founder who must necessarily do both the technical and business side. I used to think the same way, that ads are bad, but if I build a product and I want people to use it, I must necessarily tell people about it in some way, Twitter posts, telling a local reporter or tech blog, cold outreach to people, all of that is advertising in some respect. If I build it, they do not come, automatically, of their own volition, they don't even know I exist! Us engineers do not exist in a vacuum, we code for the goal of businesses to make money. Such black-and-white thinking as yours is not conducive to actually making and selling a product.
    - kuschku 4y ago
      I was co-founder in the past, and I run a few open source projects. My partner specializes in SEO, and my neighbor is in a leading position in an ad agency. I understand the advertising industry perfectly well, but that's exactly why I hate it so much. All advertising does is help incumbents, because they can afford to waste money on excessive marketing budgets. So many products are sold on buzzwords, false claims and promoting a lifestyle instead of on merit. Advertising, especially false advertising, needs to be at least heavily regulated if not banned entirely. Even the slightest exaggeration from the truth needs to be punished harshly. It's impossible to compete honestly in a market when your competitors are selling based on AI Cloud Blockchain Smart Industry 4.0 IoT buzzwords.
      - 4y ago

satvikpendem 4y ago

Many of those can include advertising, such as Amazon placement and reviews, media reports (many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets), personal recommendations, and even independent comparison tests (people see an ad, and research it more thoroughly including seeing how it fares on comparison tests, and perhaps tell their friends too). I am not saying that the tests themselves are not independent, nor that people don't use them to make purchasing decisions, but the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. Clearly, even in Germany, ads exist, and if they did not work, then the ads would not exist.

kuschku 4y ago
> such as Amazon […] reviews > many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets > personal recommendations Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Reviews may only be the personal opinion of people who provably purchased the product. False reviews are fraud and explicitly a criminal act. Placing ads in media without explicitly marking it clearly and obviously an ad, so-called “native advertising”, is explicitly a criminal act. > the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. My original argument was that advertising isn't necessary. I think after this discussion it's become obvious that there are many other working and prevalent ways to discover products. In fact, all advertising does is distort and corrupt those existing methods, trying to get me to spend more money than necessary on a worse product. Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  > Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Not really. Yes, ads must be clearly stated, but oftentimes news outlets are just looking for stories to run, which are not compensated with free product or money, and thus are not subject to such advertising laws (in the US). With regards to reviews, I don't mean that reviews are paid, rather that Amazon charges companies to be "sponsored" and if people buy those and review them, their review was at least partially influenced by buying the top sponsored product. Same with personal recommendations, not sure how you can construe it as fraud or unethicality if I see a Coke ad, buy it, and recommend it to my friends. > Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead. It is clear that you don't work on any products that make money, or at least aren't in any of the non-technical sales or marketing roles, or are not a founder who must necessarily do both the technical and business side. I used to think the same way, that ads are bad, but if I build a product and I want people to use it, I must necessarily tell people about it in some way, Twitter posts, telling a local reporter or tech blog, cold outreach to people, all of that is advertising in some respect. If I build it, they do not come, automatically, of their own volition, they don't even know I exist! Us engineers do not exist in a vacuum, we code for the goal of businesses to make money. Such black-and-white thinking as yours is not conducive to actually making and selling a product.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    I was co-founder in the past, and I run a few open source projects. My partner specializes in SEO, and my neighbor is in a leading position in an ad agency. I understand the advertising industry perfectly well, but that's exactly why I hate it so much. All advertising does is help incumbents, because they can afford to waste money on excessive marketing budgets. So many products are sold on buzzwords, false claims and promoting a lifestyle instead of on merit. Advertising, especially false advertising, needs to be at least heavily regulated if not banned entirely. Even the slightest exaggeration from the truth needs to be punished harshly. It's impossible to compete honestly in a market when your competitors are selling based on AI Cloud Blockchain Smart Industry 4.0 IoT buzzwords.
    - 4y ago