Advertising may work by cultural imprinting

There are two schools of thought about how advertising works:

• Emotional inception: according to this theory, the ad makes you want to buy something directly. You see an ad for a BMW car, and the car looks appealing to you, which makes you desire it and eventually buy it.
• Cultural imprinting: according to this theory, the ad creates a cultural image of what a product signifies. You see an ad for a BMW car, and you equate BMW’s brand with luxury, so you decide to buy the car to signal your wealth to others (and yourself).

Other notes/counterarguments

• Is inception tied to direct-response marketing, while imprinting is tied to delayed-response/brand marketing?
• If ads work by imprinting, then Advertising must be consistent so that it sends the same message to everyone. Otherwise, the brand is diluted. This means that Personalization may be harmful
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/2h0ae7/ads_work_by_cultural_imprinting_not_by_a_kind_of/ - some interesting counterarguments here.
• https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/2gy2ws/ads_work_by_cultural_imprinting_not_emotional/ - also here.
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344345

References

• [[ads-dont-work-that-way|Ads Don’t Work That Way]]
• Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey
• How Brands Grow seems to partially contradict this theory, postulating that Marketing must build availability