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Comment by Cynddl | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone here recommendations for research papers on how advertisement works in practice? And how it affects different people?

While the argument used in the article (“you've seen it a lot = you'll buy it”) seems reasonable, it also hides many factors (I'm not gonna buy a new car if I don't know how to drive, even if I see ads for cars every day).

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Well, not exactly papers, but this video gives a good introduction to Edward Bernays, the one who figured out modern propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj_UWbifM2U

Tversky and Kahneman, anything from Irwin Levin for framing and consumer behaviour, James Druckman for opinion formation (albeit re. political opinions), Anne Lang for media message processing, Ebbinghaus (very old) for exposure repetition, &c.

Robert Cialdini's book Influence seems to be a pretty good place to get started with this topic. He cites a lot of scientific studies, and also provides some anecdotal examples to keep things interesting.

>it also hides many factors (I'm not gonna buy a new car if I don't know how to drive, even if I see ads for cars every day).

Well, that's kinda obvious. It works in making you more prone to go for a brand/product. It doesn't miraculously make you buy it every time.

That said, after having seen enough ads of happy people in cars, and more car ads, and yet more car ads, more people would be entertaining the idea "perhaps it's time to learn how to drive and buy a car" than before.

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