Taking a break from working on some songs, I was explaining to a friend the importance of marketing music. More specifically, I'm talking about the timing of an album's release. Companies are very aware of Christmas, Spring Break, end of school/start of summer, and so on to get the biggest bang for their advertising buck in record sales.

This made me realize that this release timing has absolutely no bearing on me at all. Actually, I find myself interested in different bits of music at totally arbitrary times to the masses for some reason. Of course, I don't celebrate the traditional Christmas, so my purchasing habits remain constant rather than escalate during that time of year.

Now, I don't understand a great many social things, such as I love to wear fuschia, mango, and other colored shirts a lot. Fuschia makes my eyes feel good and I forget I have the shirt on, so at the end of the day when I arrive home and take it off, I get to see the color again and it makes me feel good once more. However, my fellow male friends always comment on how much they like the shirts, but would never wear one. I don't understand why they won't wear coral or pink or whatever, but I don't see many men wearing them in observation. Of course, they're the majority and I can see how that would affect marketing strategies even if I don't understand why they would never wear the shirt.

Sooooooooooooooooooo....................

Do you think marketing strategies designed for the masses have the same or similar impact on you as a person with ADHD?

Do you find yourself buying things at different times other than the typical for no logical reason?
(e.g. I am very likely to buy a CD of Christmas music in August if I like the artists, even though I don't celebrate Christmas per se, and it's not Christmas season, and I'm not trying to save money buying off season. I just like the music.)

Basically, does standard marketing work on us?

Actually I happen to know a lot of people with ADD who are/were in the marketing field. I think that many of the great marketing campains were probably very apealing to people with ADD and because of that appealed to everybody. If you are successful marketing to people with ADD you will probably be successful marketing to the public as a whole. I don't think the same can be said the other way around.

I think the KISS method works great for people with ADD. So do marketing technique which use more than modalities to help people process the information. I also think that many people with ADD need to connect to things on somewhat of an emotional level. Also many people with ADD are totaly turned off my a "hard sell". I'm sure the average person is too but many people with ADD have those ODD like tendencies that kick in when they think somebody is trying to force them to do something.

I know that as a person with ADD not only does telemarketing not work on me but I can get very creative and oppositonal with telemarketers who call me. The average person might say no thank you and hang up but still remember what the product or service was they were trying to sell. Not me...I just remember that the person annoyed me and that I gave them a rough time. Couldn't even come close to tell you what it was they wanted me to buy....

There's a lot of negative advertising on TV these days. Like the Ditech.com ads where the focus is on the loser compeitor. And the credit card ad where the focus in on a competitor's always saying "no," i.e., having "black out" days when accrued frequent flyer miles cannot be used.
I just assumed that this was bad advertising (and imagined a host of reasons for it).
But maybe average folks actually are attracted to the products whose virtues are only visible in contrast to something worse?

I only buy things that seem to fit with my life...of course I tend to buy things rather impulsively at times but not usually in conjunction with ads I've seen. Packaging is more important than adds for me because i'm very visual and tend not to pay attention during commercials.

...I tend to buy things rather impulsively ...Good point. That is a common ADHD trait, although my OCD keeps it more than in line -- most of the time. ;)
And I do think marketers often try to trigger that impulse, which means ADD folks are, as a group, more suseptable.