For many years, I have wondered about the efficacy of advertising.
Then, I listened to a couple of the 'Freakonomics' podcasts, where they discussed experiments and statistical studies on this very subject. Those studies, and the reaction to them, are very interesting.
If advertising is actually effective, it appears to be only one-tenth as effective as is generally believed by those in the trade. However, the people in marketing in large companies, and those who sell them advertising, just 'know' that it works. They just can't explain how it works, nor provide any unequivocal data to support their conclusion. However, they maintain their cushy jobs on the backs of those beliefs.
One of the knock-on effects of this belief is that Marketing faculty at universities earn 1.5 to 2 times what Mathematicians and Engineers do, because 'everyone knows' how effective they are.
As I have said before, we are the nation of con men and used car salesmen.
1 comment:
JD comments:
It is possible that marketing and advertising can be counter-productive. Constant repetition of the same message becomes annoying very quickly. There is also the obscurity of the adverts, e.g those meerkats; what are they selling? I can't be bothered to find out.
But with the invention of the remote control the sound is easily muted during the ad breaks on the TV and for us oldies the ad breaks are the opportunity to dash to the WC without missing anything important.
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