it's a pretty big claim to say ads don't work, cuz they can. but they aren't nearly as effective as you might think, if multiple studies from the past couple decades are to be believed
generally, ads aren't great at helping small businesses get attention, and mostly work for already extant products, assuming they advertise continuously to normalize them in a culture. a truly stupid amount of money is spent on something that is at best a fraction as effective as often suggested
so, a cultural shift has happened in marketing. the previous shift has been talked about before by smarter and funnier people than me, but the new era is an acknowledgement of marketing's place in our culture as. uh.
being a weird bad thing all of us want to block and get rid of
"available for free within the premium subscription package" so, not free then that's not free it costs money you see
anyways. advertisers know that people don't like ads, and even people who see them aren't affected by them unless they sustain constant exposure. so! rather than even attempt to advertise, the new move is to associate the desired end point with the product regardless of its function.
no longer do you need to explain how your product works when your entire campaign is "don't worry your empty little head and let us, the people personally responsible for taxes being so complicated, figure out your taxes for you"
this new push from TurboTax is one of the most vile pieces of marketing i've ever seen. at no point is the purpose of the product explained beyond the need to do taxes in general. and as such they spend the entire length of this campaign showing people just. being happy.
at the beach, with their family, cooking, taking care of plants. they don't even begin to market the merit of turbotax, just the feeling of "not doing taxes"
(because taxes suck don't they?? (because turbotax's owners actively made it suck))
quick reminder of the other products and services intuit owns, by the way
the point of all this is to say: ads aren't actually very effective
but also: our entire modern digital commerce space is built on ads
and since the point of a company is to make more money and grow, it doesn't matter if it turns out their product is actively useless, or if they just lie about it being useful. what matters is they've already supplanted themselves as the backbone of the spaces where digital culture grows
people will keep blocking ads, or finding ways to create ad-free spaces or versions of things they love (thanks, co-host!)
and they'll keep doing it. advertising is not itself a core of humanity, it is simply a trick used to associate a product or company with a feeling. and the feeling most people want right now?
relief. rest. relaxation.
and it's far, far easier to skip past justifying what your product even does to just advertise the feeling of "being free" and "not doing taxes"
happy tax day, marketers! i know you're not paying any yourselves tho haha
