[Svip]

Generic ads are more useful to me anyway. When the ads are targeted, it's usually for products I already have an opinion about, and about which I have therefore already made up my mind.

Generic ads, on the other hand, can be about topics/products I usually would never consider or have a strong opinion about, when I realise it might be helpful to a problem I've been neglecting or something like that.

Put another way: Targeted ads are never useful to me, generic ads are sometimes useful to me.

[jolfdb]

That's because when a targeted ad is general enough to be useful, you misclassify it as a nontargeted ad. Nontargeted ads are pretty much only punch-the-monkey mortgage an dcar insurance scams.

[jdmichal]

There are two ad campaigns which caused me to try a new product. Neither time was I actually looking for a new product. (The products were Old Spice and Dos Equis. I figured they earned a try just for entertaining me. And I ended up liking both of them.)