[throwaway800]

Is this a useful definition of advertising, especially in the context of everyday purchases brought up by eterm? The most prominent brand I interact with is a major grocery chain. This is because they have a huge store 5 minutes from my house. I'm not going to start going to another store even if it carpet-bombs my browser to get brand awareness. VC-funded adtech won't help anyone scale brick and mortar.

My purchasing decisions are based mainly on whatever is the cheapest. I do find brands useful, to the extent that if a product is brand-name, it's likely to be more expensive than the no-name variety one shelf below. Saves some mental effort of comparing prices more closely.

The muesli I purchase is store-brand. I have made the decision by comparing nutritional content of a number of varieties.

I have been advertised to to get me to look at the nutrition labels, I suppose.