this article is so dis-genuine it hurt. Because it pretend to be an unbiased scientific study It voluntarly misses 2 points that everyone know are the heart of advert: 1- Familiarity As KleinBloo pointed out, the more you see a brand on ad, the more you have a familiarity with it. When come the time to buy something, you are more confident in the brand you saw on TV/net , than the scary off-brand, you never heard of. That is less easily testable, because it 's a long term ploy. Mostly you're advertising NOW to children, so that they buy/use your shit when they become adult 2- Information If you never know Apple just launched a new iPhone, even if it's your favorite brand, you'll never get to go buy one. The few last month I had the displeasure to watch some ads on TV. 90% of them are for new stuff. The new 3$ meal, the new phone, the new car. Without the ad, you just wont buy it because you just wont know it exist. It could be easy to test the launch of a new product with and without ads.. and my bet is on the ad doing wonder. But the article doesnt give those data
While I think those are both great points, a major part of this article was about how difficult it is to quantify the value of advertising and how it's effectively a shot in the dark for pricing and that with the exception of Google and fb, all other advertising firms are shrinking. The use of eBay has some pros and cons for the article. It's useful as it's a large, well known brand that probably doesn't need to advertise as much, especially since there isn't really a product there, just a mode of communication. There isn't really that much to advertise now that they're as well known as they are. I do think it could have been improved by looking at ads selling things. Car ads are a great example. I'm on my phone and it's late so I'm not going to go searching, but I recall reading something about how car companies spend so much on advertising because you'll be more likely to remember their commercial because the sheer volume. But as the article points out, are those translating into advertising effect or simply selection effect? And that's the part that matters. How effective are these ads really, and how can that be measured?