> But people always retort “of course ads work on you. Maybe it’s just in subtle ways!” No. They don’t always work. I provided a very clear example.

The example you provided is a specific case for a specific type of ad as it relates to a specific person.

When someone with experience in ads says “ads work on you”, the meaning isn’t “every ad works on you” or “any ad can work on you”, rather we mean “there are certainly some ads that work on you”.

Some simple examples, some using your soda reference, some not:

- Ads for Dr Pepper might increase your consumption of Dr Pepper. That would be a successful ad or ad campaign that worked on you. There are relatively easy ways to track how much mass media ad campaigns (i.e., no detailed ad tracking) impacts things like sales. The attribution isn’t at the individual level, but it certainly can be said that an ad worked on some people by increasing sales (lots of statistics in the estimates, but the results are fairly reliable).

- Submarine articles work. Examples are the “chocolate/coffee is good/bad for your health” type of articles. This can even get more subversive by influencing primary sources like when the grain lobby somehow got the federal government to create the food pyramid with a truckload of carbs at the base. Ditto with the tobacco industry and smoking. All of that crap is marketing that led to stealth ads and naturally occurring submarine pieces. Unless you don’t read or watch any news, you are exposed to this, and it probably influences your opinions and actions at the margin.

- It’s possible to be hyper-vigilant in a way that prevents most ads online, but they are almost impossible to escape unless one self-excludes from a lot of online services. I’m one of those “ad blocker types”, but I still get some flavor of ads on Amazon once I log in. Amazon ads are some of the most profitable mass delivered ads in the US. Do they work on me? Sort of. I don’t click on the paid ads, but I’ve certainly searched for and ended up purchasing products that were shown in ads. The ad was effective in accessing me during my “product discovery” phase.

I could go on, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.

If you want to construct narrow examples that ads aren’t effective on you, then that’s relatively easy to do, and it’s easy to do for most people.

But you can’t construct a context in which you aren’t influenced by some ads on some topics unless you simply isolate yourself from media and society.

If you think you can, then you’re fooling yourself.

Your narrative so far has been “look at my narrow example… hah hah… ads don’t work on me”. Meanwhile, the ad industry is influencing you in ways that you are or seem to be oblivious to.

As i said before, it would take a fairly invasive shadowing of you in your day-to-day life to figure out which specific ads or category of ads either do or might influence you, but i assure you that it’s happening.