|
Literally in marketing 101 (okay, 301) one of the first things you learn is that marketing is not necessarily about directly selling things, but about brand recognition and subconsciously instilling it, and implied quality, in the consumers mind. For instance Coca Cola spends an obscene amount on advertising each and every year, even though they have no significant competition. A big part of that is because it creates an image in your mind the next time you go to buy something, that Coca Cola is higher quality more desirable than alternatives. So for instance for your AC unit, perhaps you see a Samsung and GE. Your decision between which to buy is the purpose of marketing and advertising. For instance this is also why companies don't really like running discounts. Discounts can produce immediate increases in sales, but they simultaneously can also subconsciously diminish the perceived quality of a product in the consumer mind. Places where discounts, across all brands, are ubiquitous and independent of the manufacturer are presumably a game changer here since it's not the product being discounted per se but the site itself running a discount. Apple's 1984 ad is still probably one of the most famous ads. Check it out [1]. It doesn't really make you think, "Yes I must go immediately buy a Macintosh." Literally no details are given about the product at all, and 90% of the commercial is a cinematic that has nothing to do with the product. Nonetheless it instills a image, and one of perceived higher quality, in your head of the company and the product. So the goal of advertising is not necessarily to immediately make you buy a product, but to change your perception of a product. --- This is about marketing in general and not digital market exclusively, but it's relevant since for instance the vast majority of people also don't think commercials are effective on them - yet companies spend billions of dollars running them. Somebody's wrong, and it's not the side that can directly quantify the cost:returns of the marketing. And one other final point here. Even in 'naive' marketing, it's a numbers game. For instance did you ever buy viagra back in the day when viagra spam was everywhere? Probably not. In fact, almost nobody did. But if each of those impressions cost a company $0.001 and their profit margin on a single sell (let alone return purchases) was $15 then they only need to get 1 out of 15,000 people to buy the product for it to be a profitable endeavor. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA |