Why good advertising works, even when you think it doesn't

Central argument- good advertisements aren’t suppose to get you to act immediately, rather they create positive memories and feelings that influence our behavior over time to encourage us to buy something at a later date.

Many claim that advertising doesn’t affect them and that it doesn’t influence them to buy certain brands, or products. They are wrong. Using creative techniques that involve catchy songs and jingles, they effectively embed brand names and companies into our memory. So that when the time comes to buy that product or any thought that distracts you towards that product you immediately think of particular brands as they have been imbedded in your memory in the form of a creative advertisement.

Famous ad’s for brands like old spice, taco bell and geico, are in the heads and memories of every one, so when you where watching the old spice add and wondering how weird it was, or that the advertisement definitely didn’t affect you, the add actually sneaked past your defenses and imbedded its self into your brain for many years to come. The writer of this article also makes another fundamental claim that if it doesn’t work then why does everyone do it? After all it’s a $70 billion industry. For example when someone complains about how lame, stupid or ineffective an advertisement, most of the time they can distinctly remember the brand that the ad was for completing the advertisements purpose.

As we consider the argument we must also ask ourselves that why don’t all advertisements work, advertising too has its pit falls. “Crafting a compelling message or creating an engaging impression is not easy (particularly when trying to reach an increasingly digitally distracted and time poor audience). It is equally difficult to make sure that the intended memories stick to the right brand.” Every new ad has to be more original, creative and distinct from older advertisements. This is the main challenge faced by most marketing companies today. Even through it’s pitfalls marketing and advertising remains one of the most lucrative and competitive industries today.

Though people may claim otherwise, advertising does influence us in our daily lives. Its effects are subtle and usually act in the long term. Ads are usually unsuccessful when they try to convince the public directly, when advertisements are direct they fail because no one likes to feel that they are being manipulated. In the current world, without the use of marketing any big company is bound to fail, advertising keeps monopolies from forming and it is what keeps the market competitive. Besides if companies spend seventy billion dollars each year to advertise, I am quite sure it works and works well at that.