>Brand advertising, in contrast, works on a spread-out scale of years or decades...The actual effect that a brand advertisement has, is to add PENNIES (not dollars) to their sales every day, for the next 100 YEARS. It's a long-term investment. And for these reasons hard if not impossible to measure or control for confounders - but that doesn't mean it doesn't work!!

Car brands are the obvious example of brand advertising. They are among the most common TV advertisers but they don't expect people to immediately go out and spend $50k on a new Mercedes-Benz after watching a 30 second commercial. They just want to establish Mercedes-Benz as a brand of luxury, performance, technology, etc. That way the next time you are in the market to buy a car you already have an ingrained positive perception of Mercedes-Benz that might help sway your decision.