Reading "Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34374725" and personally being awfully annoyed by ads everywhere I was wondering how effective these ads really are.
So this guy bought an LG TV and got so swamped with ads that the TV gets slow and horrible to work with, up till the point where he had to dedicate resources to build something that eliminates them.
We have ads on TV, where i live you get ads before a program, 5 minutes the program itself, 20 more minutes ads, 20 minutes program, etc.
On the Internet even the FBI (I think it was) suggests using an ad-blocker for regular surfing because ads are not only annoying, but also dangerous.
Spam.
New Years eve celebration is sponsored to the point where you lose the celebration mood because you have to watch ads.
Pay TV, where you already pay to watch, still presents you shitloads of ads (except Netflix, for now). Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, they all are so swamped with ads that you don't recognize anymore what is promoted and what is what you were actually looking for.
Ads, ads, ads everywhere.
Now my question is: How effective are they really? How many times did you actually buy a product because an ad for this product ruined your sports watching, online shopping, internet surfing experience?
Personaly I tend to never buy things based on ads, and while I do understand how "generic" ads (those on TV, billboards, etc.) may actually work to "strengthen" some brand[0], I completely fail to understand how the so-called targeted ads on the internet can work.<p>Example of last week, I needed the mounting instructions for an industrial scaffolding that a friend of mine had bought (used) for his workshop, so I went to the manufacturer's site hoping to find it. I was lucky as the manual was still online even if the manufacturer has discontinued the product and is producing now high end mechanized/computerized storage scaffolding, and sure enough for a few days I had ads about these new industrial ones (that of course I will never buy, as I am not in the industry).<p>Then I bought online a (around 10 Euro value) a simplified TV remote for my mother, and for a few days I had ads for the same one that I just bought.<p>My usual approach is to search on monday for something (that I won't buy anyway, but that is anyway interesting to me) like "drones" or "laser cutter" so that I can have for the week related ads.<p>[0] I.e. after having seen tens or hundreds of ads about this exceptional soap for the dishwasher, and when/if I am at the supermarket and actually need some soap for the dishwasher, then I may fall for it and buy - to test it - one of those I saw.
There are good ads and bad ads, mostly it's just businesses throwing mud at a wall and hoping some of it will stick.<p>Did I ever buy anything from an ad, well I must have since I buy a fair amount of products and something makes me choose one brand or another? I guess it's more subtle than just seeing an ad and thinking I must rush out and buy that thing. Businesses spend a lot of money on brand building and it's kind of hard to not be influenced by this.<p>One ad campaign that does spring to mind goes back to the early days of analogue mobile when digital was about to become the next big thing. A company called Orange were at the forefront of this and their ads were groundbreaking at the time (more than 20 years ago). I remember thinking I want to be part of this thing.<p>Ask any British person to complete the sentence 'The future's bright... and I'd be surprised if anyone fails to reply 'The future's Orange.<p>Comparable products/campaigns would be stuff like the iPhone. But, yeah, they are pretty rare.
Never, I think, but I can't be sure, it's hard to know because the ads are everywhere, even in TV shows or movies. I usually only buy things I need, never because they're cool or trendy.<p>I also live in an ad-free digital space, I never use a service with ads that I can't block. I hate advertising, it's the cancer of our societies.