Advertising effective?

American companies spend trillions of dollars every year on advertising because advertising sells their products.

Obviously advertising is beneficial for manufacturers. Educated consumers may find advertising to be helpful. Foolish consumers will find advertising to be one expensive lesson after another.

I don't think it's ever been said better.

puzzled
Educated consumers may find advertising to be helpful. Foolish consumers will find advertising to be one expensive lesson after another.
do you mean that educated members would only find it a good way for them to get whatever they like, and for whether it worths or not, who cares? but the foolish ones will condemn a lot after buying it and find it not as well as it is advertised?

Advertisers are interested in selling their products. An educated consumer will listen to the advertising, but check out the worth of the product from other sources. If I were going to buy a new refrigerator, I'd talk to sales people, check the Consumer Reports magazine, ask my friends what they knew about refrigerators. Then I would make an informed decision about which refrigerator to buy.

Remember, here in the States we have hundreds of models of refrigerators.

Testing
Before I spend one cent on advertising I always insure I have some means of working out it's effectiveness .. no matter whether it is internet based advertising or not ... Test and test ... or else you will waste money

it depends
Who are your customers?
Do they like ads and what kind of ads they prefer? How large is your company?
Do you like the ad to cover a whole country or just a local one?

Some ads tell people there is a company doing such business.
Some ads sell products.

Sometimes PR does a better job than ad.