Also how many ads are we exposed to where we aren’t paying conscious attention to it?

Surely those ads could sometimes cause someone to think or talk about a concept that they might not have otherwise.

If the ad then pops up again and they notice it this time, it will feel really spooky!

I think it’s similar to the phenomenon where you learn a new word and then immediately see it out in the wild somewhere. It grabs your attention because you were just thinking about it.

In the original example of ordering meat from the butcher, I also wonder if it’s possible that the data from that purchase was tracked and fed into the ad system. That seems more plausible to me than the “phone listening” theory.