This is like those "we are everywhere" yard signs - empty sloganeering that makes a liberal feel good, but overall just further agitates chud brain-worms.
paid for by republicans for voting rights
lol, at least the republicans are fracturing (:inshallah:) over it
Ads have long since stopped being about convincing you of anything. I mean sure, that was the case in the 60s or so I guess (I watch Mad Men) but it doesn't work anymore. Ads only purpose now is to reassure the people already buying into your product they're making the right choice, and in that case this shit works great.
...sometimes I really don't like being a materialist. This makes sense and I hate it.
It actually doesn't make any sense from a materialist perspective at all
I wouldn't say it's the only purpose, there's still advertising aimed at customer accquisition, but there are definitely ads with that customer retention goal in mind as well. Capitalist overproduction constantly requires people to buy stuff they do not actually need, or spend too much on a fancier version of something they do need, or buy stuff they do not even really want on an impulse, so buyer's remorse is an expectable (and actually perfectly reasonable) reaction that corporations have to keep in mind.
Ads aimed at "post-rationalization" (telling yourself it's ok to have bought something useless) are a way to combat this buyer's remorse and retain customers, especially for luxury brands who have very few customers, but generate a lot of revenue off each of them. This is why marketing material for Porsche informs people who are already their customers how good the ceramic breaks on their new Porsche are: It convinces them that the midlife crisis mobile they just wasted 200 grand on isn't a death trap they, as usual Porsche owners who drive their Porsche twice a year, cannot handle at all. It reassures them that they made the correct choice and that they are happy with their purchase so they keep their Porsche in their garage and don't resell it while it's still a recent model.
It would make little sense to tell this to potential customers, as nobody has ever bought a Porsche because it has good breaks. It's a car you buy for purely emotional, irrational reasons, but after the purchase logic may kick in and the bit about the breaks is part of a marketing strategy that guides the customer in the "right" direction once this happens.
:gold-communist:
Spending resources to reinforce your consumer base and/or voting bloc? Sure it does. It's rather shortsighted and wasteful - but as a bonus, your nephew gets a cushy job where he can only fuck up so much.
edit, of course, you first have to convince yourself that there is literally nothing you could better spend the resources on. Luckily, that's standard for American politics.
A consumer base is an entirely different thing from a voting bloc. For a profit-seeking business, it makes much more sense to seek to expand you customer than reinforce the people who already bought your shit.
I have no idea how on earth someone could think this is a "materialist" approach - to think that businesses intentionally waste resources on the emotions of abstract people rather than seeking to grow, which is the fundamental goal of any capitalist.
Not if you expect them to be repeat customers, which is the case more often than not. It's much cheaper to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one.
This isn't a materialist approach, it's a materialist explanation for seemingly irrational behavior
But advertising isn't seemingly irrational
You're right, it is a rational course of action.
I just can't shake the feeling that it's balanced on a shaky premise. "Spending money on ads = even more money in sales"? It just doesn't seem like the resources and energy put in are directly proportional to the return. Especially at the scale and saturation we see today. Granted, these companies have the dough to burn, so even diminishing returns are better than none... but I can't help but see it as an overall waste of productive energy.
Yes, it does. There's an absolute fuck-ton of research indicating this. It is an entire field of study and practice.
You're entertaining a fantasy if you think it doesn't work, generally.
Yeah... I think I wanted it to be a paper tiger... the alternative doesn't bode well.