>Is advertising WORTH the money people spend on it?

When I worked for that magazine, we once did a huge reader survey. Among other things we asked whether people read the ads, and how often they bought products as a direct result.
Most people said they read all, or most, of the ads in each issue. Well over half had, at least once, bought an advertiser's product or service as a direct result of an ad. A lot depended on the type of ad; we had a big section every issue with small, cheap black and white ads for charter boats, dive shops running trips, etc. Virtually every reader had been a customer of these advertisers, because that was one of the *reasons* they bought the magazine - they were scuba divers and wanted to find a trip to go on, right then and there.
Far fewer people had bought big expensive products, like boats or dive gear, as a result of seeing a big colour ad. This is the "Pepsi" scenario Sam wondered about. All the company is doing is raising public awareness that it exists. If the reader later decides they want a boat or some dive gear, it's more likely that the big-advertising companies will have stuck in their mind as an option. I really, totally doubt anybody ever read an ad for a $50,000 trailer boat and decided to get one, without first having some sort of trailer-boat-owning desire in their mind to begin with.
Of course, this is why niche magazines exist and why people advertise in them. You can be pretty sure that a large number of a diving magazine's readers already want to own a boat, so that's where you advertise. That's also why it's so hard to work out whether the ad creates the desire or merely provides the 24-hour toll-free number to fulfill it.

Brunnen-"don't often buy as a result of ads, but sometimes refuse to buy as a result of ads I really hate"G