I know traditionally that advertising a product’s positive benefits, or using other tactics like fear and isolation (in vs out-group) can cause people to purchase a product, but nowadays, when it feels like there’s an oversaturation of product advertising, how do companies get returns on the millions that they spend on advertising? Is it subliminal messaging or do people really still see a product advertised and think “Cool I want that”?
In: Economics
It’s more about establishing familiarity and brand recognition. People will buy from brands that they trust, and they will trust brands that they’ve heard of before. It’s not that they see your advert and go “I must have that!”, it’s that next time they’re in a shop looking for a product, they will see your brand and think “I’ve heard of them before, they must be good”
For the huge ones that are already household names it’s about popularity contests, maintaining that brand recognition so they don’t get forgotten over time, and trying to position themselves to ride waves of popular trends. If you’re a teenager looking at Pepsi and think their branding and advertising looks cooler and more relatable than Coke’s, you might push that idea to your friends, they might push it to their friends, etc etc and before you know it suddenly Coke is considered old fashioned
And then there’s the sort of viral marketing type stuff, trying to drive hype in a specific new product range, like a new meal at McDonald’s or a new flavour of a drink or something like that
Generally, it’s just about making your brand be well-known and thought of positively. That makes people more likely to buy from you
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