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lelanthran | on: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
> Since when have we considered ads something helpful?

Depends. Ads a low-effort large-reach pathways for lead generation, mostly useful for B2C penetration.

I also did sales when I ran my own company, and I can absolutely guarantee that ads can be helpful. When talking to leads you're talking to someone who a) never saw what you offered but is listening to you anyway, or b) saw what you offered and decided to contact you.

The very first thing I'd do in sales is try to determine if the person I was talking to had a) A need my product could satisfy, plus b) Authority to make the purchase, and c) The budget to actually follow through.

The last thing I wanted to do is spend a bunch of my limited time talking to people who never had any intention of pulling the trigger on a contract; those are much harder to convert to paying customers (not impossible, just harder) and were almost never worth the effort.

My best-case scenario was "Someone reached out to me". Ads are a way to make that happen.

Now, if you're talking about internet ads, then you're talking about a different beast altogether (B2C), and those ads can be helpful to purchasers if they were already in the market for $FOO.

The problem is that internet ads are almost never worth the money - a significant number of clicks are from bots, another significant number are from accidental clicks and only a tiny tiny number of them are from people with the intention to buy $FOO from somebody, and they are just checking our your $FOO offering to compare.

lesostep | parent | next
>> mostly useful for B2C penetration

Might be useful for a B that wants to penetrate some C, but is it really useful from a penetrated C perspective?

nticompass | root | parent
Are we still talking about ads?
edoceo | root | parent
Of course. It seems like an illustration of who's getting F-ed
daveguy | parent | next
You argue that ads can be helpful... by saying all the ways ads are helpful to the business. That's not what Google means. It's a way to make ads not sound like an obnoxious shitshow by pretending they are helpful for the consumer. The only way they are remotely helpful is to let someone know about a product they didn't know about. But that's not what ads are really for and we all know it. They're for manipulating people into buying a product, but whether they need it is purely coincidental. The admongers can stop pretending otherwise.
lelanthran | root | parent
>> Now, if you're talking about internet ads, then you're talking about a different beast altogether (B2C), and those ads can be helpful to purchasers if they were already in the market for $FOO.

> You argue that ads can be helpful... by saying all the ways ads are helpful to the business.

Are you sure that's all I said.

daveguy | root | parent
Your example on the statement was about the companies. What Google said has nothing to do with the companies. They're clearly trying to paper over the manipulation. I was giving you that credit for the one thing they're slightly good for once. But really we all know that consumers can find products just fine on their own through word of mouth and reviews. But advertisers manipulate that too with paid reviews and astroturfing. Way to pount out the only thing I agreed with you on as if I didn't, even though the majority of your post was arguing for the ads because they benefit companies. And you even said those internet ads that let people know about a product aren't worth the money. You are a true advertiser. Congratulations.
jordigh | parent
An ad is never helpful because ads are designed to mislead me into buying something I didn't need or knew about before I saw the ad.

If nothing else, an ad cannot impartially compare a product with the competition (and sometimes the "competition" is buying nothing at all), therefore every ad lies.

If I already needed or knew about it, I didn't need the ad.

If I was happy with my life without the product advertised, I didn't need the ad.

Furthermore, ads are fueling our capitalist, consumerist economy that is destroying the planet. Ads are a literal existential threat to humans.

drfloyd51 | root | parent | next
I saw an add for a medicine that was new on the market and my friend who could use the meds, was unaware of its existence.

Now, after a doctor’s involvement, my friend is on the new med and it treats their condition better and the quality of their life is improved.

pasquinelli | root | parent | next
seems like the ad was superfluous. the doctor treating your friend's condition would be aware of new drugs relevant to your friend's condition. i go to a doctor because i don't know about medicine, i don't want to be educated on medicine from snake oil salesmen.
drfloyd51 | root | parent | next
How does it seem like the ad was superfluous?

The ad triggered a series of events that helped my friend.

The doctor, for whatever reason, was not the primary motivation.

pasquinelli | root | parent
> How does it seem like the ad was superfluous?

just to be clear i don't know your friend or their life or their medical condition or if the drug you saw an ad for treats their condition or if you saw an ad for a drug or if your friend has a medical conditon or if you have a friend at all... and i don't know if every event in a chain of events is necessary to the eventual outcome of that chain of events... and i can't see into the alternate reality wherein you didn't see that ad for a drug, to know your friend would've been fine in the end... and so on.

i'm speaking more generally, saying advertising is superfluous to medicine.

jodrellblank | root | parent | next
Conspicuously absent from your scenario is the way the doctor becomes aware of the new drug. How does that happen?
dylan604 | root | parent | next
By accepting SWAG from the pharma rep, or accepting free trips to conferences sponsored by pharma. If a doctor has not heard about a new drug the their reps just haven't made their way to them yet because they're in a smaller market. The yet is key, eventually a rep will make their way to them. More than likely much sooner than the TV ads run
_DeadFred_ | root | parent | next
By doing their job instead of hoping a stranger's friend happens to land on a useful ad?
rcxdude | root | parent | next
By researching new drugs? Though sadly at the moment the doctor is also a target of advertising. The point being that this should generally be a pull process driven by a demand (and mediated by neutral review and publication processes) and not a push being driven by a supply (mediated by a process that goes to the highest bidder).
pasquinelli | root | parent
so in your mind "advertisement" covers any transmission of information?
jodrellblank | root | parent
so in your mind, a pharmaceutical company telling a patient that a drug exists is "advertisement" but a pharma company telling a doctor that a drug exists magically isn't?
jamespo | root | parent
Ah this world where doctors are perfect and know everything
pasquinelli | root | parent
ah the world where ads are a good form of education.
specproc | root | parent | next
> Furthermore, ads are fueling our capitalist, consumerist economy that is destroying the planet. Ads are a literal existential threat to humans.

I'm sorry, a single anecdote does not invalidate the above.

Ads are evil. They make us desire things we don't need, undermine our self-esteem, and in the large part just sell scams. I'd be happy to ban most forms of advertising. It's a plague.

freedomben | root | parent
This happened to me as well, and during a football game ad (which I generally skip and despise highly). The signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low with ads, but they indeed can be helpful sometimes.
| root | parent | next
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s1artibartfast | root | parent | next
I need a new dishwasher. I dont want to go knocking on doors until I find somewhere that sells them. Im glad they have signs, webpages, and info sheets.

Promotion and discovery are important. Advertising is the spread of information. Of course some can be bad or misleading, and that is bad.

rcxdude | root | parent
Publishing information about your product on your own website is not really what most people consider advertising. Nor is being added to lists of similar products. Most people object to 'push' advertising, where attempts to persuade you to buy a product are inserted whereever your attention is, as opposed to 'pull' processes where you have a need and are trying to gather information on how best to solve it.
dylan604 | root | parent
> If I was happy with my life without the product advertised, I didn't need the ad.

Well, how do you know that your life couldn't be better with the product? /s