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Comment by saulpw | Hacker News Reader

Ads work subconsciously. By the time you're looking for a new X and go shopping, you'll recognize company A making an X and it will register as a viable option, only because you heard about it somewhere--having forgotten that you saw their ad and vowed never to buy something from such a money-grubbing corporation. Also, basically everyone has to advertise these days, so good luck finding an X made by a company who doesn't advertise. If you do, in a year or two you'll be extolling the virtues of this wonderful product that you can no longer buy because the company went out of business.

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At least it's not hard to find companies which don't advertise too much. I don't get angry by one poster on a tram, but I get really upset when an entire site is flashing with the ad, when the ad is an outright lie, ... And I'm certain I remember (at least some of) those. I hope I'm not alone, voting with wallet seems to be our only way out of ad-ridden world :/

Yeah, I can imagine that non-intrusive advertising works on me, via subconscious and brand name reinforcement. But if I notice the advertising, I'd rather buy a cheaper and better product from a competitor who spends their money on product quality or discounts than a company that spends heavily on advertising. One of the evils of manipulative advertising is that consumers end up paying for it, and once you recognize this you start sticking with the less well known brands.

I don’t believe the “ads work subconsciously” bs. Whenever I plan to buy something I a) look it up beforehand or b) (if it’s a routine purchase like groceries or household essentials) follow some method like brand name, second cheapest, iterate between different brands, etc.. b could be influenced by subconscious advertising but i just don’t think so, and anyways, most of the things that are heavily advertised (car insurance, expensive stuff, apps) are things I’m going to research before buying.

I do think advertising works, it works because there are unaware people who do impulse buy expensive things and buy whatever they see. Lots of people probably aren’t going to research what olive oil or smart TV is the best, they just want to get their shopping done. And, kind of like how IAPs work because some people will spend thousands of dollars on them, some people spend thousands of dollars on impulse buys.

> I don’t believe the “ads work subconsciously” bs.

A long time ago now, but when I left my parents house to go to another city to study, when I bought laundry detergent for the very first time in my life I ended up with the brand stuff - and I only noticed what I had done at the cash register. I had skipped the cheaper no-name products even though that would have been much more appropriate for my financial situation. Instead, I picked the brand I subconsciously remembered as brand, the one that always had the most annoying TV ads. The one where as a teenager I had wondered, why is anyone so stupid to make such annoying ads? Anyone seeing them would avoid that product! Turned out those annoying housewife ads did work as intended on me.

The problem is now, when you "look it up beforehand", your going to be reading a ton of organic advertising (paid or not). It's just not a flashing banner ad so it flies under your radar.

Maybe you didn't read me clearly.

I get the subconscious thing, sure. I subconsciously find brands REPELLENT if I think they are familiar options likely because they are popular with ad-susceptible people.

What happens in practice for me is that I don't buy a lot of stuff besides core needs in general. But when I do, I'm super resistant, I have a defensive posture as a consumer. And the one time I let my guard down a bit is when I have the impression of some product just being good quality stuff that is advertised only in organic ways.

I mean, put another way: I don't have bias against searching for a class of products, finding a website of product X, and reading from the company about the virtues of it. I'm not as open to that as if a trusted friend recommends it, but I'm not opposed to it. But if I find out that the company paid for Facebook ads or whatever, it pushes it into a subconscious category in my head which is something like "this product is out to trick me into buying it", and I have a gut-level mistrust from that point on.

Is there a way to search for products without falling for ads or marketing in general?

Even if I use an ad blocker, all the results are dominated by SEO spam. You can go and search Reddit to try and find honest recommendations, but companies are starting to spam that as well.

Searching directly on Amazon is pointless because they prioritise their margins above all else and show you the crappiest products that make them the most money.

For electronics I use a https://geizhals.at -- it's theoretically a price comparison site, but it has a great parametric search which is the best for finding electronics.

But for general purpose stuff I'm really struggling.

Have to disagree with the idea that you have to advertise. Word of mouth still dominates in many industries. Restaurants generally don't need to run ads, and even some chains like Krispy Kreme don't bother.

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