Are your purchases influenced by commercials? (45+, retired, adult, toddlers)
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i can honestly say no or it influences me not to buy whatever it is. The harder they advertise the more likely i am to consider another option. There's a reason some company spends big bucks on ads. Their product isn't superior or unique enough to sell on its own merits. Many ads are easy to ignore because of where i live (fast food, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.) and for that geographic filter i'm eternally grateful. The buying opportunities simply don't exist. Wonder of wonders, we survive anyway.
I hardly ever see a commercial about anything i want/need to buy. If i need something i do my own research about it and make my own decision. Two of my pet peeves include the current agonizingly illiterate/tone deaf burger king commercials and air fresheners; febreze and the like. Not only do they saturate the air everyone has to breathe with chemical stinks, they saturate the air waves with the same ads every 3-5 minutes 24/7/365. I mean i know many consumers have the attention span of a gnat and the buying smarts of a mongoose, but enough is enough! That "family" company something or other johnson just earned my "most premature obnoxious seasonal ad of the year". Holiday scent ads showed up right after labor day. The blab-off button on my remote has got to be the best invention since sliced bread.
Once in a blue moon will i see an ad introducing some brand new product that intrigues me. Enough to do additional research and discover the all-important fine print.
One of the better things about being of retirement age is having more years' experience at ignoring advertising. Otoh, i've never felt the urge to buy many consumer products others feel they can't live without. That hasn't changed much over the years so age had little to do with it.
When I turned into a Subaru chick I paid more attention to the commercials for they were supporting the decision I had made. What made me buy a Forester was it was the best buy for the money. Finally, many of the SUV commercials back then (Monterro with the girl with the Husky, Xterras in the active life) were showing me the kind of world I wanted to embrace.
But on the opposite side of that note, when the commercial is showing a world I don't embrace, I am probably even less moved, such as a, say, an Acura commercial showing going to the night spots, being in the high business world. Since that is rather the world I despise, I would never think of getting one.
Finally, commercials can drive me totally away from a site. When I had TV and the Sci Fi Channel, every commercial break they showed advertisements for Star Gate, the most important night of the week. I was never a fan of the show to start with but having it shoved down my throat that way, I eventually hated it. It probably vastly helped me to have no regrets of noting having cable anymore when I moved out to the country.
Commercials that show people as idiots or misbehaving or being mean to each other, such as with fast food, would have me writing that company off my list. Even though I don't eat fast food, if someone said let's stop for lunch at some place on the "list", I would no, thank you......for their advertising has already killed my appetite.
Use adblocker while surfing. Almost zero adverts.
Mute all TV commercials.
You want my money? Get a write up in a non-compensated publication.
Be a small brand.
Examples:
* Mephisto and Giesswein shoes
* Darn Tough socks
* Vilebrequin linen shirts
* Sub-Zero refrigerator
* Miele vacuum, dishwasher, ovens, washer, dryer
I'm with davebarnes above. Do my best to avoid ads wherever possible. Blocked or muted. I turn my head or walk away when that's not possible (public settings). Anyone involved in advertisting/marketing should just kill themselves, as far as I'm concerned.
I buy things based on the item's merit or longevity, or upon recommendations from friends/real people. I no longer trust online ratings on websites, far too many paid reviews and fake comments.
I only see commercials when we are traveling as we only have Netflix and a free streaming service at home. So here in SoCal, we are just appalled at all the commercials at our rental. To distract ourselves, we count them: usually about 13 commercials, then 5 minutes of content. It's unbelievable.
But it led me to wonder just how much people buy from commercials. Obviously it works, or there wouldn't be all this money spent on it. I thought long and hard about our purchases, and I honestly can't think of a single thing we bought in our lives due to a commercial. But we must be unusual.
We just mute them and even look at something else, they are so annoying. In fact, I am so turned off by commercials, I won't buy that product. And the pharm products! Good grief, are you going to diagnose yourself, pick your own meds? Most of the ad time is spent on side effects!
Since retirement age people are new to "influencers", I thought our take on commercials might be unique.
What have you bought because "you saw it on TV"?
I think I may have purchased ketchup at one time, based on "Anticipation." What drew me in as a kid were radio ads for racing and concerts at Glens Falls New York, and had I lived within a reasonable distance I would have been there. Living in deep rural Vermont, it was not.
The money spent on commercials is "squishy." A lot of the time a direct cause and effect - commercial > sale, is not the intent. "Impressions" are considered cumulative. Automakers have to compete for impressions with other automakers not only for eventual sales, but for stock price support. Then there is an advertising "budget allowance," which may be a way of shuffling money and handing out perquisites. The current excess example is the Oscars "gift bag," which is now so valuable it has to be declared on taxes. Another purpose of the ad budget can be trade-offs. Local news stations get free cars from dealerships in return for mentions and free ads. What was very common in the past was newspaper advertisers holding news editors by the short hairs because of expensive ad buys. What price do you put on killing a damaging story about labor practices without any paper trail?
By in large, advertising is a numbers game. As much as 80 to 95% of a viewing audience may never even be in the market for a product, but if the ads can be purchased cheaply enough, and the profit margin is high enough, making the lives of millions of viewers miserable is simply not relevant to the equation.
Bulk buys nationally, high profit margin products like drugs, means lots of ads.
I only watch PBS aside from an episode or two of Escape to the Country once in a while. I always mute the commercials. I HATE commercials and commercial telly in general. Yes, there were a number of great commercial telly programmes I watched over the decades, but the older I became, and the worse commercial telly became, the less I watched commercial telly. I always muted the commercials if I watched in real time. Often I just recorded what I wanted to watch and then fast forwarded through commercials once I finally sat down to watch.
I have been both amazed and appalled by some of the commercials I have seen on telly over the decades. I cannot believe some of the products advertised on telly, yet I Love Lucy was not allowed to use the word "pregnant," after they decided to let Lucy Ricardo have a baby, too. I have seen commercials advertising phone sex even! Unbelievable! Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and many others are turning over in their graves....
As for purchases, yes once in a while a commercial prompted me to try a product (Soloflex anyone?), but for the most part, I have not been overly persuaded by commercials. However, I will say that I do recall some fun commercials from decades ago that if I see them today make me smile, e.g. Slinky toy commercials, Sunshine Rinso commerials, Campbell soups commercials. There have been some I really enjoyed over the years.
Now, if you loved pro basketball the way I loved pro basketball in the old days, you have to love this one....still makes me grin after all these years....
I don't think most purchases are influenced by commercials, but I do think a lot of purchases are influenced by different listed items already on Amazon such as the "here's what most people buy together" or "here's similar items to the one you're viewing" section.
It's like a fish hook they're trying to bait you with. "We know you're just trying to buy pants, but look at the these other cool pants in different styles people have also bought."
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What drew me in as a kid were radio ads for racing and concerts at Glens Falls New York, and had I lived within a reasonable distance I would have been there. Living in deep rural Vermont, it was not.
