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Comment by boplicity | Hacker News Reader

People almost never admit it when they respond to an ad. Even when they very clearly do.

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of advertising, or its ability to influence you.

You don't even see ads for local restaurants, you just go there because its close or a friend recommended it. How could you get influenced by something that doesn't exist? Their marketing is just the storefront, people go there since they are interested in this new place.

They definitely spend on ads but I worked at Red Lobster a few years ago, I definitely remember TV ads. Now and then I get a food ad for a place I'll never go to and never do. Uber Eats is trickier because I just look at the map for whats closest to me.

Google Ads, especially Google Maps, has tons of paid ads for local restaurants. So does Uber Eats and similar ilk.

I particularly despise these ads in Maps because the ad often obscures the search result I'm looking for -- and I end up accidentally clicking on an advertisement for some other restaurant than the one I was looking up.

I distinctively remember when ads have worked on me to buy something. Sometimes I blacklist a brand if an ad is deceptive and makes me click on something, but I don't watch TV much if at all, and the streaming services I do use I pay to have ads removed.

You remember when you remember an ad works on you, of course that is a tautology, you don't remember when you don't realize an ad worked on you but did.

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