Comment by kmeisthax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kmeisthax | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of this was already obvious to slightly-savvy mobile app users. Look at pretty much any free-with-ads app; a majority of the ads are going to be ads for other free-with-ads apps, many of which you already have installed. The thing is, outside of the Internet most ad spend is for marketing ubiquity, not direct response. You don't really buy, say, TV advertising with the expectation of getting so many clicks or calls out of it. And, up until a few years ago, TV was the lion's share of ad spend. So who knows if we'll see an actual industry reckoning or not. The whole point of advertising is to waste money, after all, and plenty of brands were fine with getting nothing but exposure out of it.

More interesting to me is the fact that tech companies are finding it surprisingly difficult to control where their ad-spend goes. I suppose this is an inverse of the problems with supply chains, where Apple can take three years to get a connector vendor out of their supply chain even when they were using literal child/slave labor. It's a market for lemons; bad "money" (publishers, suppliers) drives out good. The question is: will questionable ad publishing actually harm corporate reputation to the point where big ad spenders go away, or will we just see periodic Adpocalpse-style waves of spending being decreased and then brought back?

The point of traditional advertising IS pretty much to waste money, similar to how the point of a peacock's tail feathers are to waste resources... it is a signal to potential partners (business or romantic) that they are so capable they can waste resources. It is a signal of bonafides.

It's also an important signal to consumers.

That the products are overpriced?

That you're paying for these ads.

Yes, that’s the point.

No, that the product is good enough that it makes enough money to afford expensive advertising.

There is a really good essay about this that I re-read quite often: https://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered-harmful/

I can't believe I had to scroll down this far for someone to point this out.

It only says that the margin on the sold products are high enough so they can afford expensive marketing. Does anyone seriously believe that the massive marketing for a product like Coca Cola is a sign that it is a high quality product?

Yeah, that was who I meant by 'business partners'

The problem is that it is no longer true with online ads. The barrier to entry in online ads is non-existent and thus seeing an ad for a product should not be considered a trust signal (if anything, it should be the opposite) unlike on TV or print where the price of such ads works as an effective filter.

I'm genuinely shocked at how many people think advertising doesn't work.

Just because it doesn't make a person consciously stand up and say, "I want a Snickers" does not mean the ad didn't work.

Like, honestly, are there people here suggesting viral ads don't work? Or don't understand the point of Coke or Mercedes Benz ads are for? Coke establishes themselves as the defacto soda. There is no other soda, or if they are, wish they were coke.

MB ads among other things reinforce to MB owners the wisdom and luxury of their brand. To own an MB is to be part of a club, one that is advertised across the media spectrum. If MB didn't advertise at all, they would either become another commodity brand, or have to be so luxury that only word of mouth is necessary (Bently, etc).

Now, maybe that's what cortesoft is saying "get you to waste money" but if it got you to waste money on their product, it worked.

Sorry, I think you misunderstood my point a bit... I think I am agreeing with you.

My point was that advertising's purpose (from a consumer point of view) is for the ADVERTISER to waste money, to signal that they have confidence that their product is good enough to recover the cost of wasting money on advertising.

They weren't disagreeing with you in their reply, just emphasizing the same point.

I understand the point but the MB example could be off the mark. According to their site [1] they sold more than 2 M cars in 2019. Luxury yes, at least a bit, but a pretty large club. Maybe Ferrari and similar brands? But they do a different kind of advertising.

[1] https://www.daimler.com/investors/key-figures/markets/

I don't think they meant that it's a private club.

Personally, I think it's less about luxury and more about value signalling. Having a Mercedes says that you're comfortable financially, and they're "dignified". I'm not saying it's true, but it's what their marketing generally implies. Luxury is generally just a dog whistle for value signalling merchandise.

Ferrari does different value signalling. They imply wealth because of the cars performance, and they're generally a much more obvious signal. They're usually a bold color like red in the ads, and the body styles are distinctive. You could miss a Mercedes in a group of sedans; you're not going to miss the Ferrari.

The private club brand, to me, is Rolls Royce. I would guess because I never see ads (and rarely see them in person), so my only references are pop culture where they're associated with the ultra wealthy.

I'm not entirely sure about that, at least not in all cases.

I was recently in the market for a new mattress, so went to a mattress store and tried some out. Even though Tempur Pedic is all the rage with their insane ad spending, I was not all that impressed, and found a considerably cheaper mattress that felt much higher quality.

Now, this may all be sales mumbo-jumbo, but the sales rep noted that a lot of people come there only interested in Tempur Pedic mattresses, which he regards as "literally a piece of foam, total crap mattresses." They sell at such a high price point because they advertise so much, while the mattress I found came from a no-name brand that doesn't advertise at all, and was therefore cheaper.

So I guess in some markets, advertising does work. I've never heard of someone telling me how much they loved a mattress unless it's a Sleep Number or a Tempur Pedic, and those advertise by far the most.

I guess that's the thing; for a lot of industries, people aren't generally going to make a purchase without doing some amount of research. Maybe Tempur-Pedic was on their mind when they entered the store, but once they're in the store they're generally going to end up trying out several mattresses. I /love/ my mattress (and have said as much to friends), but I honestly couldn't tell you the brand off the top of my head; I just went to a store and picked whatever felt the best.

One could argue that Tempur-Pedic has to sell at a higher price point to make up for the money they spend on advertising.

This was true in the past, but nowdays it’s much easier to try out a product and see reviews.

With Uber it would be so easy to penalize drivers who cancel because they don’t like where I’m going, but I’m still wasting 30 minutes quite often, because Uber spends that money on ads and UI rewrites instead of improving the core experience.

I suppose this is true in the same sense that the purpose of life is to waste oxygen.

this confirms the previous post if you subscribe to the idea that the purpose of advertising is to waste oxygen

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