When ‘More Ads’ Backfire

Picture this. You’re scrolling through your favorite social app. A few posts from friends, a quick meme, then another ad. And another. Soon the entire feed feels like a sales pitch. Even the brand posts you used to enjoy start to feel suspicious.

This reaction isn’t random. A large-scale meta-analysis by Yin and colleagues (2025) found that the more ads a platform displays, the weaker the connection becomes between user engagement and actual sales. When a social media environment feels too commercial, people still interact with content, but they no longer buy.

That’s a problem for marketers. We’ve been trained to celebrate engagement metrics like likes, comments, and shares as signs of success. But the study shows that context matters as much as content. The same post that drives results on one platform can fail completely on another simply because the platform feels overcrowded with advertising.

Remember the 2017 Pepsi "Live for Now" campaign with Kendall Jenner? The model joined a protest march and handed a police officer a can of soda. Suddenly, the tension evaporated. The crowd cheered. World peace had been achieved by a soft drink.

The backlash was instant. It was not just anger. It was something stickier. Internet users called it a "giant cringe festival". Mentions of Pepsi on social media spiked by over 21,000%. People could not stop talking about it.

As a marketer, you look at that disaster and you shudder. You assume that negative word-of-mouth destroys brands. But new research suggests something more complex is happening in the consumer’s brain.

Cringe is not just an emotion. It is a social signal. Your customers are using your failures to boost their own egos.

Finding a marketing goldmine in unexpected situations

Do you take negative feedback with a pinch of salt, or do you react with fervor even at the risk of losing goodwill and customers’ business? Most brands will find themselves the subject of questionable public scrutiny at some point or another, with unfiltered social media channels fuelling unwarranted insults. Common responses include denying the accusations, ignoring them completely, or accommodating to the situation, even apologizing for no real cause.

We’ve all heard the phrase: “stop the scroll.” But what really makes someone pause and even better, hit the share button?

Picture yourself scrolling through your feed.

• One post says: “Our product is scientifically proven to improve performance by 25%.” 
• Another says: “Don’t miss out, sign up now and save!” 
• And then there’s one that says: “Thanks for helping us reach 100k followers, you’re the best!” 

Which one would you be most likely to share?

Why Your Brain Falls for the Casting Trick

In my neighborhood there are two coffee shops. The first serves only white, middle-aged businessmen in suits. The second buzzes with customers of all ages, ethnicities, and styles. Without reading a single menu, which shop do you think offers more variety?

Your brain just made a snap judgment. And it probably got it wrong.

This isn't about coffee shops. It's about a fascinating quirk in how we process information. When we see different types of people using a product, we automatically assume the product must cater to different types of needs. It's logical, intuitive, and an interesting tool for marketing.

Stanford researchers call this the Variety Perception Effect. And smart marketers are already using it to make their brands look bigger without spending a dime on product development.