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Why does the U.S. Post Office have a commercial? I do not understand...


Jace, Extat

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Does not compute...



Maybe I'm irreparably broken, but I thought that the point of a commercial was to sell you a product you may not have known about before or had no interest in before. I have difficulty believing that someone saw one of these commercials on YouTube and said 'Gosh! If only I'd known about the U.S. Postal Service! I'll mail my mail through them from now on, now that I know they are a viable option!'.



Seems like a waste of resources to me.


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Does not compute...

Maybe I'm irreparably broken, but I thought that the point of a commercial was to sell you a product you may not have known about before or had no interest in before. I have difficulty believing that someone saw one of these commercials on YouTube and said 'Gosh! If only I'd known about the U.S. Postal Service! I'll mail my mail through them from now on, now that I know they are a viable option!'.

Seems like a waste of resources to me.

Under that logic, Coca-Cola shouldn't run ads either; and yet most reports estimate that it spends more on advertising annually than any other company.

Sometimes its important to just keep your product in the forefront of peoples' minds.

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It's not enough that potential customers know that your service exists. You have to convince them to choose you over the competitors. When it comes to things other than letters and cards and junk mail, USPS is in direct competition with UPS and FedEx.

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Doubt anyone could forget that Coke, Bud Light, or Ford exist, yet they're all advertised constantly.

Under that logic, Coca-Cola shouldn't run ads either; and yet most reports estimate that it spends more on advertising annually than any other company.

Sometimes its important to just keep your product in the forefront of peoples' minds.

It's not enough that potential customers know that your service exists. You have to convince them to choose you over the competitors. When it comes to things other than letters and cards and junk mail, USPS is in direct competition with UPS and FedEx.

Actually, I've never fully understood why McDonalds, Coke, and whatnot advertise anymore. They've reached their peak, there's nowhere left go, and they're making approximately all of the monies.

Unless the McRib is back (is that still a thing?) or there's a new flavor for Coke, I really don't get why we need to be reminded of these things. Are people really influenced by commercials to buy a product they already know about? I'm not being cheeky or argumentative, I'm genuinely curious about this.

It's one thing to see a trailer for a new movie or show and say 'wow! that looks cool!' but I can't remember a single instance in my entire life when I said 'Applebees is still a thing!?! Better get my purse!'

I don't know if I'm making any sense... But TP's post is particularly confusing to me. Do people really pick Coke over Pepsi because of a commercial they just saw? They cost the same at the store, and I just pick one based off what I feel like getting at that particular moment. :dunno:

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I don't know if I'm making any sense... But TP's post is particularly confusing to me. Do people really pick Coke over Pepsi because of a commercial they just saw?

If Mad Men has taught me anything, the answer is, yes, depending on how successfully the commercial accessed the viewer's nostalgia/mommy issues.

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Just because you have market share today doesn't mean you will tomorrow. Ivory Soap used to have a dominant market share, now not so much. 84 Lumber used to be the go to lumber and hardware store. Now its Home depot and Lowes. There are a thousand examples of businesses that might have thought they had market share that would never dissolve, but were soon proven wrong.



For that matter, the post office used to be the only way to ship a box, until FedEx and UPS stepped in and proved it could be done more efficiently and faster. Now the Post Office has to advertise because people choose FedEx and UPS for holiday shipping instead of the Post Office. They make a lot of money on holiday shipping.



Advertising a product for which you make a lot of money seems pretty logical, yes?


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Why do your posts have so many different colours? I do not understand.

To show the various features the board offers. I mean people have been using the board for years but did they know they could use eye-stabbing font colors? It pays to advertise.

Sometimes.

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Actually, I've never fully understood why McDonalds, Coke, and whatnot advertise anymore. They've reached their peak, there's nowhere left go, and they're making approximately all of the monies.

Unless the McRib is back (is that still a thing?) or there's a new flavor for Coke, I really don't get why we need to be reminded of these things. Are people really influenced by commercials to buy a product they already know about? I'm not being cheeky or argumentative, I'm genuinely curious about this.

It's one thing to see a trailer for a new movie or show and say 'wow! that looks cool!' but I can't remember a single instance in my entire life when I said 'Applebees is still a thing!?! Better get my purse!'

I don't know if I'm making any sense... But TP's post is particularly confusing to me. Do people really pick Coke over Pepsi because of a commercial they just saw? They cost the same at the store, and I just pick one based off what I feel like getting at that particular moment. :dunno:

Well if you are McDonald's you are now competing with what I think is the best fast-ish food line-up to have ever existed in the United States. It's not just Wendy's and Burger King anymore. People in most places can now go to a Chipotle or a Five Guys or Chick fil A, etc. and get much better food in the same amount of time for a comparable amount of money. I almost never go to McDonald's anymore unless I'm off in some shit town late at night and its literally the only thing I can get if I want to eat.

The power of suggestion might be the only thing that keeps them going on the scale they currently operate at. Because if you take that away... I can think of 20 places here in town to get a better burger or a burrito that beats the crap out of anything on McD's entire menu for about the same cost. If they let the brand slip from people's minds then I think McD's would be in trouble. Not 'out of business' trouble, but they would continue to lose market share to these upstarts which I think are objectively better food. Well, objectively may a bit strong, but I bet most people would agree that McD's actual product is near the bottom of the totem pole vs. just about every fast food chain that has come on strong in the last 10-ish years.

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See, I get the basic principal of marketing. The thing is, I have trouble believing that people are actually effected by it outside of a vacuum.



For example, I went to Philly last week and ended up eating at Gino's instead of Pats because I only had time for one, and Gino's was brighter lit and fancylooking and had a longer line. But everyone in America has had Burger King and McDonalds and Coke and Pepsi. They already know what they're getting, so does the marketing really make a difference? It just seems to me that these mega chains have reached their point of saturation, where they're advertising a product that is already being consumed at its greatest possible rate.



I don't eat McDonalds anymore because I'm not white trash anymore, and no amount of 'I am Man' beef commercials are going to change that. Am I missing something? Has a strange genetic trick of evolution (that will die with me) made me immune to TV ads? Do people really fall for this shit?



What is real?


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People may not switch between, say, Coke or Pepsi overnight. But after a few years, if only one of them were advertising, I think there'd be a pretty massive switch-over; eventually the power of suggestion just gets through to people, particularly for products that so interchangeable.






Well, objectively may a bit strong, but I bet most people would agree that McD's actual product is near the bottom of the totem pole vs. just about every fast food chain that has come on strong in the last 10-ish years.





I think the fries at Five Guys are objectively better than the fries at McDonalds or any other fast-food chain. Cooking 'em in peanut oil does wondrous things. Of course, we'd need to run some double-blinds to be sure. With available epi-pens 'cause of the peanuts.


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See, I get the basic principal of marketing. The thing is, I have trouble believing that people are actually effected by it outside of a vacuum.

For example, I went to Philly last week and ended up eating at Gino's instead of Pats because I only had time for one, and Gino's was brighter lit and fancylooking and had a longer line. But everyone in America has had Burger King and McDonalds and Coke and Pepsi. They already know what they're getting, so does the marketing really make a difference? It just seems to me that these mega chains have reached their point of saturation, where they're advertising a product that is already being consumed at its greatest possible rate.

I don't eat McDonalds anymore because I'm not white trash anymore, and no amount of 'I am Man' beef commercials are going to change that. Am I missing something? Has a strange genetic trick of evolution (that will die with me) made me immune to TV ads? Do people really fall for this shit?

What is real?

People do fall for it, likely including you without even realizing that ads have influenced some of your decisions.

For me the best example might be cars. If I went looking for a new car there would be several brands that I wouldn't be interested in largely because on some level I can't see myself driving that particular brand or model. That perception of 'I am the kind of person who has this car, but not that one' probably comes down to advertising and branding even though I've rolled my eyes at (or completely tuned out) hundreds of car commercials in my lifetime.

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My brother was a coke-aholic all his life. One day he was at a store where they were doing The Pepsi Challenge, and he realized he actually liked Pepsi better. Now he drinks Pepsi almost exclusively. If a restaurant has Coke, he'll still drink it, but at home it's Pepsi all the way.


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Does not compute...

Maybe I'm irreparably broken, but I thought that the point of a commercial was to sell you a product you may not have known about before or had no interest in before. I have difficulty believing that someone saw one of these commercials on YouTube and said 'Gosh! If only I'd known about the U.S. Postal Service! I'll mail my mail through them from now on, now that I know they are a viable option!'.

Seems like a waste of resources to me.

That's a reason to run an ad. Not the only reason.

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My brother was a coke-aholic all his life. One day he was at a store where they were doing The Pepsi Challenge, and he realized he actually liked Pepsi better. Now he drinks Pepsi almost exclusively. If a restaurant has Coke, he'll still drink it, but at home it's Pepsi all the way.

IIRC in a blind test majority will favor Pepsi but when they see the brands pick coke.

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