How Effective Are Commercials?

            Commercials and advertisements surround us constantly throughout the day. There is no escape from them, wherever you may be. But their prevalence in our society has led me to an interesting question: How many commercials truly convince you to buy something? I know that I don’t typically find commercials too effective in persuading me to buy or do something. If I buy something, the chances are that I would buy it without having to look at a commercial for it. I would either already know enough about the product through my own research or have it recommended to me by a friend. The closest thing to an actual advertisement that I think would convince me to buy something is a review for the product. This could be an in-hand product review, like for a phone, or a written review for something like a movie that I was on the fence about seeing. Although in this specific case, and probably only in this specific case, a commercial might just convince me, but not very often. Usually, I hear about movies a long time in advance and make up my decision about whether or not I want to see it then, like with Star Wars IX. I haven’t seen anything for it yet, they probably haven’t even started shooting it, but I have heard about it and I know that I want to see it. But as for the ads and commercials, I don’t think that they are very effective at all. Once in a while, they might convince me to buy something, but I think this is a rare occurrence.