Re: BTW, thought here
Disclosure: advertising pays my salary.
It's not all about prompting an immediate purchase. There's this subtler thing called brand awareness such that when at some point in the future you are considering a purchase, you tend towards the brands that you know.... possibly because of the ads you saw.
But yeah, for myself I only ever notice ads that make me *less* likely to buy the product.
There's billions in advertising, and it only exists because it works. The paradox is that when you buy an advertised brand, you are paying for the adverts that may well have influenced the purchase. It's a kind of tax, but one which you are free to avoid. When it comes to the products in the category of "long ago solved problems", like detergents and toothpaste, the only factor that I take into account is the price. There's no technical differentiator to justify paying a premium.
-A.