this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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That's the neat thing, they don't.
Marketing looks like it is there to make you buy products, but it's a well-known fact that this doesn't work, and online ads specifically allow performance measurements, and they show that it's not worth the money.
So what are ads actually there for then?
First, remember that the thing that marketing departments are best at is marketing their own importance to company management. They are really good at convincing their companies that if they stop marketing, everything will collapse. So in this way, marketing is there to finance the marketing department, and everyone's too scared to stop marketing, because if they do they will be seen as the biggest idiots ever.
Second, marketing is there to provide a small revenue stream to the platform where you see the ads, but more importantly to punish you for not paying premium. Youtube makes you watch a shitton of ads, not because they care about whether you buy anything from the ads, but to punish you for not paying premium and to get you to do so. A premium customer brings in orders of magnitude more money than an ad-only customer.
I hate that I’m going to defend marketing here, but if they do stop marketing then things will collapse (for many businesses). Do I like marketing, personally? No. That’s why I got out of marketing and am becoming an elementary school teacher to help others rather than spit propaganda but I digress…
Marketing isn’t always about generating a sale. Many times its reach and brand recall. We’re a global and digital economy now, so reach is massively important for survival. Stopping marketing limits who is exposed to your brand and the repetition makes your company synonymous with a product.
Why do we call tissues Kleenex? Why do we call cotton swabs a Qtip? Why do we call small sticky notepads Post-Its? Why do we call searching “Googling”? Why do we gravitate toward those brands even when cheaper and more generic options exist that are perfectly on par?
Making those brands the prime thing you think of when you use a specific thing so that no one thinks of using something else even when they have money. You want people to mention your product or think about it even if they aren’t buying it.
You’re drowning out the potential of your competition. That’s marketing, and if you stop then your competitor takes over or a small business won’t grow.
As an engineer who hated marketing, started my own business, which subsequently failed due to my lack of understanding for the importance and proper execution of the marketing mission.... I now have a deep respect, and appreciation of a well-run marketing function.
If a business can not sustain itself without marketing, then the product is possibly not worth having.
To be fair, there are plenty of people who specifically avoid those brands because they are more expensive and they know they can save money with cheaper alternatives, or because they can't afford the name brand.
With that said, there are some times where the name brand does actually provide a superior product.
This video by Northridgefix always stuck with me because most of why his business grew is because he spent so much Google ads that he made enough money to then move to a strip mall by a major road all while making YouTube videos and taking mailed in work.
He has another video looking for new employees because he had too much business.
Yeah, everyone knows Coca-Cola. Nobody immediately goes out to buy some when they see the ad with Santa Clause and whatever, but the brand recognition is conditioned into pretty much everyone so you notice it in the store when you're thinking of grabbing a cool beverage from the fridge.
It's not even that good, but it's the default.
If marketing majors could read, they'd be very upset.
Marketing is more than just advertising and promoting though. Marketing is an integral part of a business. If you research what your target audience likes, that's marketing. Researching where you should sell your products, marketing. Focus group testing, marketing. What price you should sell, marketing. Even if a business doesn't have a marketing department they still engage in marketing.
Yeah, it's a very broad umbrella term.
I'm an engineer on a team that designs new products and fixes old ones. I'm happy to joke about the advertising & sales departments being the dark side of marketing, but when it comes to creating a product that is useful for our end-users, other facets of marketing are absolutely essential. The ideal, after all, is to have whatever ticket I am working on be traceable back to a customer need.
Heck, the product is pretty niche so even when I am chatting with our service technician about whatever crazy stuff customers are seeing & doing in the field, you could justify calling that marketing. It's customer information making its way to future design decisions, even if that decision is actually being made by an engineer rather than the Product Manager.
As you see in the comments here lots of people have no idea what marketing is beyond promotion. Unfortunately it's often engineers who are the clueless ones and just think that you just need to build a great product and the sales will come automatically. When businesses started by engineers often fail because they make something that has no product market fit because they skipped the crucial steps of marketing. Engineers often look down on MBAs and think an MBA is useless but in my opinion every engineer should take a business and marketing course.
That’s quite an interesting insight.
And a catchy one, but not really meaningful or correct.
The whole comment showcases how little they know about running a business. Marketing works. But of course we the consumer don't notice it works, because we think "Well I never click on an ad..." which also reflects on advertisement statistics.
But that's not the point of ads, at least not anymore. The point is you saw the brand. You saw what they do. Everytime you see the brand name or logo, everytime you see the product, your brain registers it. You might not realise it, but it does. And when the time comes you need a product like that, that's where the value of marketing shows. Because you'll browse, research, or whatever you do when you decide you need something. And you'll see the brand, and you'll see the name, and you'll think "Hmm I've heard of them before" and immediately place them higher in your mind than a competitor with 0 ad budget.
I’m sure it’s true that a lot of marketing departments are useless, but adept at marketing themselves. At the same time, you’re right that marketing also can and does work, and the marketing that works best is when you’re not even conscious of it. For example, most of us here are well-aware of the upcoming Steam Frame and Steam Machine. How so? Marketing.
"Uhg, McDonalds again. These assholes always waste my time with the same ad over and over again. I just want to watch a video. I hate these idiots."
Yes, the brain registers. If a brand keeps annoying me over and over again with intrusive ads, the breain does register.
This is one of those fun conspiracy theories that is harmless, and can't be argued against because you can always just say "SEE THEY'VE CONVINCED YOU TOO!"
It's not, we can prove that marketing does in fact impact sales, but it's fun nonetheless.
I find it boss that ads don't make anymony. They seem to be driving the whole world economy.
They make money for those who sell ad space.