[Fifer82]

I agree! I appear to have formed selective blindness from long term exposure which is quite useful! My eye appears to skip over anything considered an ad on most static mediums. I just don't notice them and if I do, my brain appears to discard it.

[dhimes]

Funny story about this: I was traveling back in February and returned home after about two weeks, during which my local Dunkin Donuts re-arranged their menu. I came in for my extra-large coffee but couldn't find it on the menu. I ordered a large, and mentioned that I used to order extra-large but it wasn't on the menu any more. The server pointed out that it was on the menu. I was bewildered for several seconds until I realized that the entire right-most column of the menu (the up-sell stuff) had a full-color background and different font. They did this in order to stand out, but now my eyes naturally skip over any such elements of a layout, apparently.

[pmoriarty]

A lot of people think they can just ignore ads and that ads don't work on them.

But there are a lot of very talented and creative people, a ton of research, and a whole industry, really, fighting hard against people's conscious or unconscious attempts to ignore ads, and they can be very effective, even if you don't consciously realize it.

There's a lot of research showing that advertisement is effective. The point of advertisement isn't always to directly make you rush out and buy a particular product right away. So just because you don't do that doesn't mean the ad wasn't effective.

Many times the point of the ad is to make you have a positive association with a brand, or to make you remember (even merely subconsciously) the brand so that you recognize it among a lot of other brands you see in a store -- and thus be more likely to buy a product of that brand rather than that of a brand you've never seen an ad for before.

[Fifer82]

They don't work on me though. I cannot be sold unless I go looking and then it becomes about quality, and then it becomes about price.