I'd say no, but then again I do recall Nintendo making an entire direct an ad on Youtube.

Yeah I hate ads the have little to nothing to do with the product they're advertising, not only am I left annoyed but also confused.

This is something I've always wondered, how is it that so many people are so weak minded that they buy stuff just cause an ad tells them to?

And my conclusion is that you need to have a brain that is preset and susceptible to advertising and this is probably the case for the majority. It's all about peer pressure. Your friends have a nice car so you must have one too in order for you to justify your own existence. In this context, ads simply steer you towards purchasing one specific brand over another but, as I said, this only works with weak minds.

However that does not work with people like me. When I hear about a brand, I immediately do not trust the ad cause I know they are not here to watch over my interest but only over theirs and all they care for is how much money they can squeeze out of me. Whether it is about small things like Coca-Cola, I'm like ok, maybe that brand has a good taste but this other brand for which I never see commercials tastes good too and is MUCH cheaper so no hammering my brain with Coca-Cola ads EVER makes me buy their drinks...

Or with bigger things like insurance companies. No matter how many times their commercials sound reassuring and tell me how they have my security at heart, I do not fall for it because I know very well about the intrinsic conflict of interest here. Insurance companies are businesses and their ONLY goal is to make money and every time an insurance has to send me money over some mishap they are supposed to cover, they LOSE money, therefore they will OBVIOUSLY do everything in their power to not send me the money and the contracts you sign with them ALWAYS have in small letters some condition, proviso or exception bailing them out of their responsibilities. They do not have my interest at heart and only weak-minded people could ever believe the ads about it.

So I simply don't have any insurance and have saved countless thousands of euros over the years I can use however I want instead of being conned by insurance companies and their enticing ads.

I could give you a ton of examples but these two suffice to make my point I think.

I've never understood it myself.  Like gauging the success of a particular ad campaign on a boost in sales.  If an ad is showing a very specific sale, that would interest me.  For example, Red Lobster advertising "Lobsterfest" would make me want to go to Red Lobster before that promotion ends.  But seeing a Doritos commercial, which I like to occasionally snack on, showing a particular celebrity eating Doritos, doesn't make me want to run out and buy Doritos anymore than I already would.  What's more effective on me is actually being in a store and seeing the price advertised as 2 for $4 or something like that.  That would spur me to make a purchase that I might not have originally planned on.

Not really. The product has to convince me, not the ad.
On the other hand ads are a way to introduce new products to the mass. I can't buy what I don't know exists, so ads can bring a product to my attention, which I might buy as long as it convinces me.
Ads for well known products (Coke, Big Mac etc.) have a 0% possibility to convince to buy one right now.

Yeah lots of stuff.

There's a lot of stuff that I would like, but I don't know exists. Then they have an ad for it, and I know it exists. So I buy it. Ads are not necessarily for convincing, sometimes they're just for awareness.

I've bought tickets to shows I would have surely never heard about thanks to Spotify's emails where they send you show dates near you for artists you listen to a lot.

I'm of the opinion that if you think ads are wasted on you, you are wrong. You might think you've never purchased something because of an ad, but it's not true. And it only costs a few dollars to display an ad to a thousand people, so depending on the product, it doesn't require very many people to convert to a sale for the ad to be worth it. Spreading brand awareness, regardless, is valuable to a company.

Just because you see an ad and don't buy the product doesn't mean it was wasted on you.

What about when you go to the movies? You are choosing to watch a given movie because you heard of it from somewhere, whether it be an ad for the movie or from a friend who saw an ad, etcetera, etcetera.

You can hate ads while still acknowledging that they work.

[please do not disturb]

I am busy finding dolphins and raccoons on Amazon to adopt. I'm also getting the urge to watch cartoons/anime, play video games, and drink some large quantities of soda right about now (with ice).

[gotta go, byeeee]

What if you don't go to the movies?

Yeah sure, saw a tv advert for N64 and 007 got one for xmas. Saw an ad for Wiiu and ZombiU, went and bought one.