Maybe advertising is not as persuasive as I, and many other people, had assumed. This has huge implications, because I think people had, with good intentions, overestimated the influence of advertising. One indication that advertising doesn't work all that well is that such enormous quantities of it are needed to even register on our consciousness. Advertisers want you to see their ads hundreds or thousands of times, suggesting that limited exposure would be even less effective, even for consumer goods that people want to buy anyway.
I rarely watch tv, but I know I've seen commercials time after time and afterwards not even remembered what the commercial was even selling. I would remember something about the ad, but not what it was for. Was the commercial about a giraffe for insurance, for beer, for a car? I would have no idea unless I actually paid attention. Even then I would forget, remembering the giraffe (or whatever) more than what was being hocked.
This, then, is another of those ubiquitous things that are really very poorly understood.
Isn't the takeaway that brands are effective even though slogans are not? I think an advertiser would respond with smug skepticism to your claim not to have been affected by the ads you saw. When you actually go to purchase something, he would claim, your decision will be influenced by messages you can't even remember receiving. And the most effective messages (this research is showing) are the ones that manage not to trip your anti-persuasion alarm.
ResponderEliminarI have been saying this for as long as I've been blogging and nobody wanted to listen. It's great that finally this idea is gaining traction. Thank you for the post!
ResponderEliminarMy mother, a lovely wonderful woman, has always been somewhat of a La de Bringas type of person. :-) She bought and bought and bought. This happened in the Soviet Union where there was obviously no advertisement. She still does it in Canada where she doesn't understand the language and can't register advertisement.