1w ago

Does anyone else have a negative perception of a product/service solely because of spam advertising?

I swear off so many products and services for no other reason than their obnoxious, repetitive commercials.

Off top of my head, I will never buy Old Spice anything because their ads are so repetitive and obnoxious. I feel disgust when I see it in the store and actively avoid it for no other reason than their spam campaigns.

Same for USAA, Native body wash, AmEx, Liberty insurance (that forced catchy theme), and more.

Anyone else feel the same way? Or have you caught yourself getting suckered in because of ads’ subconscious shenanigans?

42 comments

I actually can't remember any products I've seen in ads since my kids and I have started making fart noises and sad trombone noises throughout every YT commercial.

Temu. No idea what scam they're running but I will never buy anything from them.
- It's not a scam AFAIK, but it's basically just a worse version of aliexpress.
  
  I hadn't considered that was possible
- The "scam" is slaves and sweat shops.
- Those ads..
  🎶 "Feels like a dream, feels like magic..." 🎶🤮

Yup. Any of the YouTube culprits... NordVPN, Raycon, that sort of thing. Nope.
- I often wonder who is buying these?? I can somewhat understand NordVPN, but Raycons?? They’re almost as expensive as name brand earbuds but come off as a cheap dollar store brand. But I guess people really like their fav YouTube channels to actually buy these?

These days, ads seem to have an inverse reaction for whether or not I will buy something. The more I am inundated with ads for it, the more I think the product is not good enough to stand on its own legs.
Modern companies have realized they can make more money by cutting materials and R&D costs and putting the difference into advertising. You don't need to have a good product, you just need to drown out the competition.
- I look at reviews more than I look at advertising. On top of that I look at negative reviews. Most negative reviews usually have pros and cons listed or will actually go into depth about the product and it's shortcomings unlike most positive reviews that just say "it's great!"
  
  Where are you seeing such "most go into depth"? Most of what I see is utter trash, like "perfectly fine" with 3/5. Or "it arrived too late / on time". Good ones are rare in comparison.
- This is how I see it too. In the age of social media and specialist media outlets for every field, if you're paying for advertising that means not just that you're wasting money that you could have used to lower your prices, but that your product is probably not very good because nobody is talking about it.

Not completely related but there are a number of landscaping companies that use a small plastic bag to hold their business card and a small rock and then throw them into everyone's driveways once a month.
never gonna contact them
- I’ve seen that as well. Good way to smash someone’s car/house window one day.
  You reminded me of this guy who used to put a 3x5 note card with his handwriting on it and would put it on select cars in the neighborhood saying “I buy junk cars”. Basically only on cars that didn’t look to be in the best shape.
  Way to go disrespecting people you want to do business with!
  
  I've seen posts recently that someone is going around doing this to every cyber truck they see.
  I'm not mad at it.
- That's more obnoxious then leaving a flier in my mailbox. I'm not calling any contractor who does either. If they were any good they wouldn't need to do that, word of mouth would keep them busy.
- That's textbook littering, how have they not been fined out of existence?

I have a rule that if I see a commercial or an unskipable ad (even if it's unskipable for the first five seconds) on YouTube or wherever. That I never buy that product.
- I share this rule ! Annoy me and damned if I'll ever try your product.

raid shadow legends
nord vpn is getting there too

Anything advertised by a YouTuber. Some mattress company, some VPN, etc

This lemmy post is sponsored by raid: shadow legends.
- This instantly made me think of Libertarian Police Department
  "Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®" I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul.

Yes. If anything, I avoid buying products that I see ads for, period. My ad blocking is pretty extensive, I'd say, so any ads that I do see must have a pretty huge marketing campaign behind them.
I can't trust that a company can make good products when theyre spending so much conspicuous money just on advertising. Makes me feel like the company is 10% R&D, 90% marketing.
Word of mouth is pretty much the only way I learn about new products, and even then from trusted groups/people. Reddit posts pre-2016 or current, but niche interest communities, are the best for this.
- You make a good point I didn’t think about! All that money into advertising that could have gone into the product or better avenues like paying your workers a better wage. And that feeds back into the last part of your comment, that if workers were paid and treated better, I think a lot more workers would take more pride in their work and encourage more customers through word of mouth.
  I remember my ex and one other person recently telling me about going to Walmart and having employees explicitly tell customers they would never shop at the store they work for.
  That’s crazy! All that money they waste on ads could’ve gone to the employees who would be less likely to trash the company and make them look horrible to shop at.
  Versus a place like Costco where I can’t remember ever seeing an ad but treats their employees well enough that employees do encourage people to shop at their stores.

🎶BK MEEeeEEeeEElts🎶 I'm already vegetarian, but Burger King's stupid jingle makes me want to melt my local franchise to the ground.

My wife signed up for a live TV service over the holidays to watch Christmas movies and it was the first time I had seen a TV ad since ~2020. Holy crap were they awful. Not only did they put me off all the products but TV as a medium.
Though I'm realizing it wasn't negative enough for me to remember any of the products advertised, so I guess they won in a way.
- I used to go back and forth between watching TV for a few months and stating away from it for several months. It was interesting how when coming back to it how incredibly stupid and obnoxious the ads were, but how quickly you get numbed to that again.

It is not an online case but in Spain we have a telephone company called Jazztel. Their phone spam was so intense that it became a national meme. I once told one of the operators that they could give away gold bars with every bill and still wouldn't hire them for being annoying

If you are from around mid Michigan then Sundance Chevrolet, omg the ads are obnoxious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c3VT6662qs
He's on a freaking horse!
- Ungh we have a similar thing around me for a used car company.. just absolutely obnoxious commercials (that run way too fucking often) made very very poorly by the people who own the company and have an absolute gob of money.. like they could hire better (and likely pay a lot to stage that shit to look low budget) and choose not to, because stupid people fall for the “Joe Everyman” bullshit they pull.

SEITENBACHER BERGSTEIGERMÜSLI, BERGSTEIGERMÜSLI VON SEITENBACHER

YouTube itself.
I was there before YouTube had ads. And Ive avoided it since they implemented them.

A little tangential, but if someone knocked on my door and tried to sell me the patent for the cure to the common cold for $10, I'd refuse on principle alone. Stop trying to sell me stuff.

Yaris.
It's a car.

Southwest airlines. I flew on them once, now it's impossible to unsubscribe from their marketing emails.
- Thankfully I can just filter their email address straight into the garbage bin but it's still ridiculous.

No, but I have noticed that services with more advertising are typically of less quality, which often deters me because of that.
I remember when I was little thinking due to the commercials that Geico was the shit, but then my friend's family got into a (fortunately harmless) car accident, and Geico did actual shit. Not that it's not still fun to randomly insert Geico jokes everywhere.

I never did end up buying the "Girls Gone Wild" tapes for this very reason.
- With the advent of the internet and a bit of sailing the high seas it wasn't hard to get a hold of em anyway.

Lawyers

42 comments