Brand advertising aims to convert consumers rather than persuade them

Evidence

The most effective brand advertising, after all, does not try to convince you to make a choice, but rather to convince you that there is no choice—that Coca-Cola is the cola, that Camel is your cigarette, or that Harley-Davidson is the only motorcycle one would consider. It can succeed if it manages to make the brand part of your identity: One might feel the same loyalty to Miller the beer as a resident of Wisconsin feels to the state. True brand advertising is therefore an effort not so much to persuade as to convert. At its most successful, it creates a product cult, whose loyalists cannot be influenced by mere information: companies like Apple, Hermès, and Porsche are among those that have achieved this kind of immunity to competition, at least among their true believers. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 273

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘true brand advertising’ (conversion, eliminating choice) from ordinary persuasive advertising — a useful conceptual framing for how attention merchants operate.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: the religious vocabulary of advertising — ‘convert,’ ‘product cult,’ ‘true believers’ — and what it reveals about how marketers conceive of their audience.
• XREF: connects to: Advertising budgets, not product merit, determine what consumers buy — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 175; Marketing works by making consumers feel immune to it while they buy in — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 393; Advertising’s stated purpose was to manufacture needs, not merely inform — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 468 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion #qualifies (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204
• Advertising’s power to create demand is contested partly by definition #qualifies (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 284
• Modern advertising manipulates desires through images largely unconnected to the product. #expands (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1819