Power of Advertising

As in the phrases 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' and 'there is one worst thing than being talked about, not being talked about', the effectiveness of an ad is not always related to the quality, be it humour or artistic or entertaining.In the UK there was an ad campaign a few years ago that won awards and is (still) fondly remembered. A series of television commercials directed by Nick Park (creator of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and winner of a couple of Oscars), featuring animated zoo animals and talking about the comforts of a warm house. I repeat, the ad campaign is still highly regarded and it led to a television series. Funny thing is, nobody can remember what the product was. In a recent nostalgia program, everyone could remember the ad details except for the name of the company it was advertising. (It was Heat Electric)Recently Michael Winner (yes, the director of Death Wish) has featured in a series of ads for an insurance company. Hitting top spots in a poll of the most irritating ads on television (and I would certainly vouch for its irritatingness), it has nonetheless helped launch a new brand to near enough top spot in its sector against some established and heavily advertised brands.The above proves or disproves nothing, except possibly that people are just plain weird.On a personal note, I do not think that I would avoid a product just because of a bad ad campaign, but I probably have made purchase decisions based on good ad campaigns.

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Apophenia:seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
Pareidolia:vague or random stimulus being perceived (mistakenly) as recognisable.Ramsey Theoryatterns may exist.Whoops!