Honestly I never understood why ads try so hard to be annoying like I just don’t see how that is more profitable than making a ad that simply makes your product look good somehow they must be working as they are so prominent but I still just don’t get it
Somewhere, some metric told them that they don’t need to make good ads that explain the product. They only need to be as annoying as possible to garner attention, and put their branding on the end to be remembered.
Marketing is about hacking your brain in order to sell you products you do not need. It is horrible and should be banned entirely.
There’s a fundamental problem within the marketing industry, that almost nothing that’s being sold is something you even remotely need. Economics says that consumers are rational. If that’s the case we would almost never buy anything. Marketing exists at odds with that principle.
If you won’t buy it unless you need it, then they have to create need with their marketing.
If they’re selling you a pen, any pen will write, but this pen will change the way you write! It’s life changing! You need this pen, it’ll be the last pen you ever buy!
If they can’t convince you to need it, you won’t buy it.
There’s another problem, and that’s that we, collectively, are losing our attention spans. The constant access to new media means we never have to spend long on anything, something new is always at our fingertips, and we, collectively, aren’t really that patient anymore.
Before you comment on this with some anecdote about how you’ve only gotten more focused, actually. That’s missing the point, in general we’re getting worse, not better.
So now ads can’t take the time to tell you how great this pen is, really, even if it will change your life, they only have about 5 seconds before you’ve forgotten about it forever. So they have to be louder, more aggressive, and more pervasive. In whatever breed of tiktok style content you choose, you’ll stumble across videos that are blatant ads for a product that make no mention of it. Ads disguised as content, in the modern format. “Hi guys so I just got this pen and it’s l1t3rally life changing” over the top of a cool looking pen writing smoothly.
Will it work on you? Probably not, advertising gains take place in tenths of percentage points. You’re a smart consumer and never fall for such blatant ads, and for you they have a tactic too. Every single piece of content you consume is just full of ads, subtly conditioning you towards every product on the planet. Because if they don’t, you’ll keep your old shit that still works and never buy anything.
I’m a big fan of Pilot G2s, though I find the finer ones don’t last through an entire cartridge.
I specifically used pens because how pointless a good pen is, when the 5 dollar box of 60 Bic Round Stick Ms is perfectly acceptable and it’s literally the only pen most people will use every day if they use one that frequently.
A great pen is only a little better than a good one, and bad pens are available at every price.
Because, in the golden days of ads, your metrics were bullshit. You had a print ad and someone said that they sold this many issues and, because of the papers totally not biased market research the told you that for every paper sold, x more people saw your ad. Same with TV and Radio, most numbers around viewers or listeners are basically made up with some fancy statistics.
With the Internet, suddenly you had hard data - your ad has been requested x times. But, that data was always below the fancy print/tv/radio numbers, so the companies had to either push more or reduce prices. That’s how they designed more and more intrusive ads like the ones with the shitty hidden close icon. The longer you need to close it, the longer is the “ad viewed” metric. The more you click on fake X buttons, the higher is the click rate or click through rate. Ad metrics have always been a scam and no one wants to change it.
Of course it is also possible to get click through rare and even track add-to-carts and purchases… So you would think that would drive more compelling ads. But then the ad companies charge per click so naturally they want to encourage clicking in any way possible.
That being said, you now know that diamond store. How many other diamond stores do you remember off the top of your head?
Thing is, chances are that now you’ll check them out before selling or buying diamonds, and if they are worth it enough, you’ll go there. And if not you, most other people.
Zoomers for instance will see an ad to download something and they’d download it. Millennials won’t click ads at all but if they see a software ad then they will assume it’s a scam and avoid that software
So if you are making an ad you want to focus on the Zoomer demographic
As far as annoying, look at the type of YouTubers that Zoomers like. They like annoying things
They work enough, and enough is a surprisingly small amount. I imagine most click through rates are sub 1%, but with the right ratio to impressions, that can be a huge uplift to your sign ups / purchases / whatever
Honestly I never understood why ads try so hard to be annoying like I just don’t see how that is more profitable than making a ad that simply makes your product look good somehow they must be working as they are so prominent but I still just don’t get it
The bane of marketing.
Somewhere, some metric told them that they don’t need to make good ads that explain the product. They only need to be as annoying as possible to garner attention, and put their branding on the end to be remembered.
Marketing is about hacking your brain in order to sell you products you do not need. It is horrible and should be banned entirely.
“Marketing” is just a euphemism for “propaganda” and is just as unethical (if not even more so).
Removed by mod
There’s a fundamental problem within the marketing industry, that almost nothing that’s being sold is something you even remotely need. Economics says that consumers are rational. If that’s the case we would almost never buy anything. Marketing exists at odds with that principle.
If you won’t buy it unless you need it, then they have to create need with their marketing.
If they’re selling you a pen, any pen will write, but this pen will change the way you write! It’s life changing! You need this pen, it’ll be the last pen you ever buy!
If they can’t convince you to need it, you won’t buy it.
There’s another problem, and that’s that we, collectively, are losing our attention spans. The constant access to new media means we never have to spend long on anything, something new is always at our fingertips, and we, collectively, aren’t really that patient anymore.
Before you comment on this with some anecdote about how you’ve only gotten more focused, actually. That’s missing the point, in general we’re getting worse, not better.
So now ads can’t take the time to tell you how great this pen is, really, even if it will change your life, they only have about 5 seconds before you’ve forgotten about it forever. So they have to be louder, more aggressive, and more pervasive. In whatever breed of tiktok style content you choose, you’ll stumble across videos that are blatant ads for a product that make no mention of it. Ads disguised as content, in the modern format. “Hi guys so I just got this pen and it’s l1t3rally life changing” over the top of a cool looking pen writing smoothly.
Will it work on you? Probably not, advertising gains take place in tenths of percentage points. You’re a smart consumer and never fall for such blatant ads, and for you they have a tactic too. Every single piece of content you consume is just full of ads, subtly conditioning you towards every product on the planet. Because if they don’t, you’ll keep your old shit that still works and never buy anything.
I now want to buy this pen about which you speak.
You also missed a golden meta opportunity to shill out your post to BIC®
My ad blocker seems to be having issues, I can see this comment which is an ad /s
I’m a big fan of Pilot G2s, though I find the finer ones don’t last through an entire cartridge.
I specifically used pens because how pointless a good pen is, when the 5 dollar box of 60 Bic Round Stick Ms is perfectly acceptable and it’s literally the only pen most people will use every day if they use one that frequently.
A great pen is only a little better than a good one, and bad pens are available at every price.
Because, in the golden days of ads, your metrics were bullshit. You had a print ad and someone said that they sold this many issues and, because of the papers totally not biased market research the told you that for every paper sold, x more people saw your ad. Same with TV and Radio, most numbers around viewers or listeners are basically made up with some fancy statistics.
With the Internet, suddenly you had hard data - your ad has been requested x times. But, that data was always below the fancy print/tv/radio numbers, so the companies had to either push more or reduce prices. That’s how they designed more and more intrusive ads like the ones with the shitty hidden close icon. The longer you need to close it, the longer is the “ad viewed” metric. The more you click on fake X buttons, the higher is the click rate or click through rate. Ad metrics have always been a scam and no one wants to change it.
Of course it is also possible to get click through rare and even track add-to-carts and purchases… So you would think that would drive more compelling ads. But then the ad companies charge per click so naturally they want to encourage clicking in any way possible.
That being said, you now know that diamond store. How many other diamond stores do you remember off the top of your head?
Thing is, chances are that now you’ll check them out before selling or buying diamonds, and if they are worth it enough, you’ll go there. And if not you, most other people.
It’s sad really, but it does work to some extent.
It’s going to depend on age as well
Zoomers for instance will see an ad to download something and they’d download it. Millennials won’t click ads at all but if they see a software ad then they will assume it’s a scam and avoid that software
So if you are making an ad you want to focus on the Zoomer demographic
As far as annoying, look at the type of YouTubers that Zoomers like. They like annoying things
Seriously? Those kids download software from ads? What happened to the school of “don’t click the wrong button on this warez site”?
Uhhh. I’m gen z and everyone I know knows not to download software from ads.
They work enough, and enough is a surprisingly small amount. I imagine most click through rates are sub 1%, but with the right ratio to impressions, that can be a huge uplift to your sign ups / purchases / whatever