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Comment by atweiden | Hacker News Reader

Don’t think marketing can work on you?

    McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It"
    Kit Kat "Give Me a Break"
    State Farm "Like a Good Neighbor"

Not even the cynics are “above” hearing repeated phrases. Repetition = familiarity = $$$ = incentive to do marketing.

Con artist expert Paul Wilson claims people who think they can never be conned are the easiest marks [1]. People who similarly think they’re invulnerable to marketing are practically guaranteed to be buying bad things from bad people, because they couldn’t possibly be misled by marketing.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkz1ItKLAvk

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I think the more prevailing opinion is just that marketing follows Sturgeon's Law. McDonald's is a good example - their marketing (at least in my region) is excellent, and I'm consciously aware of the fact that it leads me to having a higher opinion of them as a company. On the other hand, KFC's marketing is absolutely horrible (do other countries get those insanely out of touch "shut up and take my money" ads?), and I occasionally choose not to eat there solely because their marketing pisses me off so much.

I'd say that fewer than ~5% of the adverts I see increase my opinion of the advertised product/brand, and around 80% of them actively reduce it. Based on my other interactions with people who can be described as "nerds", this seems like a reasonably common sentiment.

In short, it's not that people think they're invulnerable to marketing, they just think that they're invulnerable to shoddy marketing aimed at the lowest common denominator with no thought beyond "let's just yell at them every 5 minutes until they buy our product". Which could very well be true.

This is a point made by famous advertiser David Ogilvy, in "Ogilvy on Advertising."

Some ads have been proven by measurement to un-sell a product.

The worst companies do a poor job of measuring the effectiveness of their marketing and un-sell their product.

A good advertiser will measure for this affect and change their ads accordingly.

But yes. Not all ads improve sales. Many ads do un-sell product.

When was the last time you bought something because of ads?

Would a fancy jingle convince you to sit 40 mins in traffic for the same crappy burger with slightly different sauce from the same Sysco truck?

> When was the last time you bought something because of ads?

The last major purchase (>$100) I've made because of an advertisement was a ROG Phone 3 (two of them, actually) late last year. I had not ever heard of it before seeing an advertisement for it, and upon looking it up it seemed like a really good option.

The last one full stop was a billboard advertisement for a block of chocolate with a flavour that I know I like from a brand I don't normally purchase. Decided to try it out, liked it a lot. That was about three weeks ago.

> Would a fancy jingle convince you to sit 40 mins in traffic for the same crappy burger with slightly different sauce from the same Sysco truck?

I don't think it's possible to sit in traffic for 40 minutes on my continent, so that's going to be a pretty tough sale.

Both of your examples shows you bought new products because you learned about their specs and tried them for rational reasons. It isn't a counter-example at all. Traditional marketing works via emotional manipulation first and foremost, informing the public is secondary. If marketing to nerds mainly works via informing them of new products then marketing isn't very effective on that group.

Okay, but what about someone who knows those jingles but hasn’t purchased any of those conpanies’ products in the last 20 years?

Literally no idea what my insurance company name is. Or their cringe jingle. How do you even know them? People remember that? Even for candy bars?

I just got whatever had the lowest quote for the coverage I wanted, and filed it away. I know the broker name, but don’t know and don’t care what lowest cost regulated carrier provides the coverage.

When coverage is identical and service unimportant (as in term life insurance or statutory minimum auto), this makes sense.

Having had the same auto insurer for 34 years and excellent service on a small handful of claims, I’m not shopping them on price (although they have a strong reputation there as well).

...but how did you pick your broker? If you're using a broker, you're not choosing the insurance company. So telling us that the insurance company's marketing has no effect on you is a moot point: You passed the buck to your broker.

And how did your broker choose them? How did they choose which insurance companies to work with? Do you know for a fact that they took every possible source of insurance into account when providing you with recommendations?

Sounds to me like you may be naive about just how much of an effect marketing has your purchase decisions. It's not always as obvious as a jingle.

How I picked my broker:

step1: scape the list of all licensed brokers in my jurisdiction from their regulatory website. step2: prepare the email clearly spelling out the request for quote. step3: spam all brokers. repeat in a week to make sure they weren't on vacation.

i emailed 200+ brokers with my RFQ, waited a week or so, and picked the lowest cost, then grind them down a little more on the price. I then emailed them my billing details and forgot about it.

Insurance in my area is tightly regulated. Forms, tables, amounts - it's all tightly regulated. It's a commodity.

Could you play devil's advocate and point out where marketing could've played a role?

Impressive. That does seem like a thorough objective process for which promotions/advertising* would have had zero impact.

So: Touché.

I don't think that's the norm, even among the majority if HN readers, but I agree that your process as described appears to remove any potential promotional influence.

* Marketing, as I've argued elsewhere, goes beyond promotion and impacts prices and the details of the offers, which obviously did impact your choices. But I think you and most people in this thread are referring specifically to the promotional side of marketing, so it may be pedantic of me to make my argument here.

I haven’t heard these slogans since I’ve stopped watching TV around 2009.

Stopped watching TV in 1999. I didn’t even expect people remember this cringe, this thread is a revelation, feel like a caveman.

It’s literally just amounts to letting people shit into your brain.

1996!

Case in point: "Nodejs/Mongo: it's webscale!"

I have never been conned by a con artist and I am pretty sure I never will. And I am sure that is true for most people here, just because a con artist says it is easy to con people doesn't make it true, you believing him here is just another of his tricks, don't fall for it. The people who are hard to con are just the kind of people who will refuse to engage with him in the first place.

Edit: I assume all the downvoters have plenty of stories of when they got conned and lost a lot of money, since it is so easy to do and nobody is safe, so lets hear it!

Cons take many forms, and a conman doesn't have to be a single dude.

IMO, Google cons people daily, delivering one thing, after promising another. EG, we don't track, then being caught tracking.

But larger cons happen all the time.

For example, some kickstarters. Vapourware. And, even getting a tech person to pass on links about what if vapourware.

A con is not always about money from your pocket. Look at ponzi schemes. The original investors do very well, but are scammed into endless free advertising, which enables the end-con.

There are small cons, and big cons too. I suspect that the non-conned have been conned many times, they just don't get how.

Motte and bailey here, the argument was con artist. The parent poster argued that con artists easily con anyone, and the people who are the most sure they can't be conned are the easiest to con. I'd argue that is 100% false, and you retreating to the motte here only serves as evidence that I am right, cons are easy to spot for most people and they don't fall for it.

My point is that a con artist isn't just a guy on the street, but can exude professionalism and officiousness.

My reference to a ponzi scheme is certainly in "con artist" turf, as is kickstarters and vapourware peddlers.

I don't see how I am moving an argument, when I am demonstrating cons which you seem to think are not cons?

The post in question used a video from a typical street con-man to argue his point. I argued against that, street con-men don't do very well even if the guy in the video tries to argue otherwise, so it isn't very good evidence that everyone are easily tricked.

You can try to argue that a group gets tricked in other ways, but that is a different argument, I just punctured the street con-man part of the evidence. You could even argue that the street con-man is good evidence that people actually aren't equally good at spotting cons, since some falls for it even though most don't. And since the effect is so dramatic for street con-men maybe the effect is similarly dramatic for marketing? Who knows, anyway it isn't good evidence in his favour at least.

From my perspective, conversation doesn't stay rigidly locked onto one specific case.

And, your comment appears (to me) more general, as you just say conmen...

But anyhow, no biggie. Have a good one.

Con artists these days tend to prey on unsavvy and vulnerable people. A big portion of this group is the elderly. You may be very savvy today but you never know if someday you’ll get Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia that will leave you highly vulnerable to con artists. Unless you have savvy family members to look after you, that is.

> I have never been conned by a con artist and I am pretty sure I never will.

You made an account so you could be part of the content marketing project of a VC firm.

This! 100% this! We're all actively participating in Y Combinator's marketing right now, as we argue about whether marketing has any effect on we, the superior nerds. The irony is thick.

I made an account so that I could destabilize the memecomplex which powers this place, replacing opinions and slogans with facts and logic. Eventually, it is my hope that one morning, the rest of y'all will wake up and have a thought like, "Maybe I shouldn't be exploited by Silicon Valley," and then we can turn off HN forever.

Alternatively, PG is a con artist, isn't he!

Maybe you did that, I made an account to participate in a discussion forum. Until I submit an application to ycombinator or back one of their startups or apply to one of their startups I don't see how I have fallen for their marketing. Similarly, just because I sometimes get emails from people calling themselves Nigerian princes doesn't mean that I fell for Nigerian prince scams.

Even though you're on a discussion forum, this discussion forum exists because it's part of the marketing strategy for a VC firm.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. You're having an (ostensibly) good time here and YC benefits, too.

HN is great marketing because people will convince themselves it's not marketing because they're too smart to fall for marketing.

I don't get your point, falling for marketing implies that I would be better off doing something else. What should I do instead of posting here that would be better for me? The only bad thing that could happen is that I fall for HN ads and applies to join them in some manner (if you view that as bad), until that happens I haven't fallen for anything.

Instead I evaluated the product that is HN as a forum, saw it delivered the features and discussions I wanted and decided to post here. It isn't more complicated than that. Can you give an example of a person joining a forum that you wouldn't say is marketing? Because it seems like you just did the "everything is marketing!" argument here.

Forums are great marketing! Sure there are random individuals who run discussion forums for fun. But when a company or organization hosts a discussion forum, it is 100% a form of marketing that they can benefit from.

HN is a forum and it is also a marketing tool. This isn't debatable. It's also not a bad thing.

You can enjoy the features and discussions here but you're also contributing to YC's marketing efforts. Whether you "fall for" the ads and apply to join YC or whatever is somewhat irrelevant. You (and everyone else here) being active and engaged participants is essential to the success of any discussion forum.

That's why I block all marketing. Can't repeat anything if the message doesn't even reach me.

This sort of mindhacking really should be illegal. I know that won't ever happen though. This is a problem that can only be solved via technology. One day someone will invent sensorial filters for eyes and ears that will just block all this bullshit. Their return on investment will tend toward zero and they'll stop.

How do you block "all marketing"?

Do you have AR goggles that black out billboards on the side of the road? Signs inside of stores? Rounds .99 prices to the higher dollar? Headphones that drown out in-store music?

Do you somehow automatically detect and block sponsored content? Ads on podcasts that are spoken by the hosts themselves?

If you believe you've blocked "all marketing", you're the biggest mark I've ever met. It means you're unaware of the vast array of ways marketers reach you every single day.

There's no ad blocker in the world capable of blocking "all marketing". That's just an absurd statement.

Yeah, my ADHD actually does most of that for me. I literally do not remember 95% of the billboards I've been exposed to today. Never read any words.

There's a good Numberphile / Scam Nation combo episode for The Razzle game that he mentions by the way [1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=527F51qTcTg

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