How does Advertising and Promotion Influence You?

[Andrew Joiner]

It seems like every image or theme I see is put there by some interest who paid to put it there. I ask myself who wants me to believe this and why?
Unless I'm talking to a friend, or outside in the wild I'm a potential target. Everyone is after eyeballs these days.

For a long time there was an hour of local and national news a day. Now with 24 hour news channels could advertising and promotion be the main culprit behind "fake news" on either side of an issue? To sell ads and grab eyeballs you've got to make something into "breaking news".

Didn't Facebook's troubles start from the need for advertising revenue and selling data to influence people?

I did some research on a big medical decision 15 years ago. I was getting info from the internet that seemed unbiased. As I looked deeper I found most of the websites were run by the drug company that provided the "only" treatment I needed. They call this "astroturfing" it's a common practice. I was skeptical and got true unbiased info that was a lifesaver for me.

I'm old enough to make my own decisions. I do love Sawmillcreek's ads, but most advertisers and salespeople don't like me.

[John Lanciani]

People need to realize that if they are not the customer they are the product, period. Nothing in life is free.

[Art Mann]

Fake news is generated by ideologues whose cause is unpersuasive if only the truth is told.

[Edwin Santos]

Fake news is generated by ideologues whose cause is unpersuasive if only the truth is told.

Another way of looking at your comment is that news is deemed "fake" when the news outlet's version of the truth is different than the recipient's version of the truth. We live in a time when you can pick and choose the truth you want to hear and consider everything else fake.

Back to marketing, I think the whole science of neuro marketing is very interesting. Basically this field uses functional MRI to study how people's brains react to messages and stimuli in subconscious and subliminal ways that are not necessarily apparent to us. This near involuntary part of the brain is called the Reptilian brain and it is highly influential over our decisions. You cannot control the deep brain chemistry activity and trick the MRI unless you are a tibetan monk capable of going into a very unique deep state of meditation.

My point - most of us are much more heavily influenced by sophisticated marketing than we think (or than we'd like to think). This has been proven to apply to all demographic groups, and all ages, including those over 35.
Edwin

[Carlos Alvarez]

My point - most of us are much more heavily influenced by sophisticated marketing than we think (or than we'd like to think). This has been proven to apply to all demographic groups, and all ages, including those over 35.
Edwin

Yup, agreed. One of my long-time clients is a marketing research company and I've learned a lot from them. Which is why I make sure to protect our household from as much advertising as possible. No live TV, no broadcast radio, nothing with ads enters our lives.

[Dave Lehnert]

I did not read through all the post above.
The only ads I hate are the ones that pop up when you are trying to read a story or the like. Keeps moving the print around. News web pages seem to be the worse.

Having said that I don't mind seeing ads. I have gotten some great deals that way.
Just yesterday an ad came up on my facebook page. I am doing research on buying a new bicycle. The ad yesterday was for a bike brand that I was unaware of and "Look" to be just what I been interested in. I need to do some more research but glad I saw the ad and now have another choice.

[Lee DeRaud]

Just yesterday an ad came up on my facebook page. I am doing research on buying a new bicycle. The ad yesterday was for a bike brand that I was unaware of and "Look" to be just what I been interested in. I need to do some more research but glad I saw the ad and now have another choice.

I can live with that, what bothers me is getting bombarded by ads for something I just bought, usually from whoever I just bought it from.

[Carlos Alvarez]

They don't know you bought it, just that you were looking. The ad networks are not related to actual customer accounts at all.

The bicycle thing is exactly the example of why ads should be blocked. I don't want to see a junk bike you want me to buy while I'm researching what *I* want to buy.

[Lee DeRaud]

They don't know you bought it, just that you were looking. The ad networks are not related to actual customer accounts at all.

And the vendor I just purchased from pays them for doing that? That's the kind of thing that gives "inefficient" a bad name.

[Carlos Alvarez]

And the vendor I just purchased from pays them for doing that? That's the kind of thing that gives "inefficient" a bad name.

Yup, and yup. Again, reasons I'm totally anti-ad. You just paid the vendor to tell you to buy the thing you bought.

[Brian Henderson]

I can live with that, what bothers me is getting bombarded by ads for something I just bought, usually from whoever I just bought it from.

That drives me crazy. Amazon spends a lot of time telling me about things I already bought from them, always things that I am not likely to buy again. What's the point?

[Chuck Wintle]

I think advertising is a good thing because, as has been mentioned, how would the consumer know a new product exists unless he/she hears about it. IMHO though if all televisions sets were shut off it could be a good thing also. Our thoughts and actions are so manipulated by the mass media that independent thought becomes an extreme act of individual will power. The mass media can be a monster sometimes.

[John C Cox]

I honestly don't think the biggest risk to us is consumer companies trying to sell us wares through overt, disclosed advertising... There is a much greater risk from "Marketing" and "PR" firms passing off paid pieces as "News" or "Information" - example in the case of much woodworking content presented as "Articles" are in reality paid and sponsored "Advertorials"....

Here's how something like this would work... Say I start John's Chisels R Us to sell my own line of chisels... But I need to find a way to get the word out - but I want to specifically target people who will buy my stuff.... So I contract a PR/Marketing firm and pay a Woodworking magazine or website to work together to write up a very favorable review of my product... Perhaps even do a shootout with a bunch of different chisels where mine comes out near the top... And then I pay them to feature my tools in a series of projects they are doing over the next year...

Notice how none of these efforts have disclosed that I am paying for these things to happen... They are all presented as "Objective Journalsim.." This blurs the line between "Marketing" and is where things become dangerous - because it is not DISCLOSED that the efforts are paid, and who is paying for the work which was created to sell a product...

Say now you found out later on that all the favorable reviews you read of John's Chisels R Us tools were created by a professional marketing firm and were simply then "Edited" by one of the prominent magazine editors under his own name... Say you found out the same thing for the "Shootout".... That it was a paid promotion contrived to show that John's Chisels R Us are real solid performers when they are actually re-branded rejects from Harbor freight... And so they created a bunch of tasks and a ranking system which would make an inferior tool look like it performed well.. So perhaps they highlighted a bunch of "Real Life Chisel Use" tasks "For the rest of us" like cutting sandpaper, prying paint cans, pulling nails, and chipping glue off cement... Perhaps they tested them all using "Real world sharpening" on a portable belt sander and older Silica stones which won't sharpen the new alloy steels... Perhaps they rolled them around in the back of a pickup truck for a week then sharpened them on a cement driveway.... Then add a few contrived opinion ranking categories and off you go.... Suddenly - these "chisels" which aren't even good for scraping gum off your shoes come out as solid performers.... And you are the one who is a problem when you complain that they just don't hold up right in your hands....

and I also want to put a little bug in your ear... Does that sound like any of the web content or magazone reviews you have been through... I know I was sucked in by the allure of some tools like this about 10 years ago.. And was then disappointed when they didn't perform well in my hands.. Come to find out in the last few years that *Everybody* had basically the same results as me... But since the Magazines all said they were awesome and featured them prominently in builds - it must have been a problem with me.... Right?

[Bill Dufour]

I do notice on some of the shows they duct tape over the brand name of the power tools if they are not a sponsor. I can recognize the Makita blue tools that Norm uses even if they are not a sponsor.
Bill D.

[Mike Cary]

Marketing does not affect people over 35 much. By that age brand loyalty and experience is too hard to overcome. Most marketing is designed for heads filled with mush.