> Your point about the numbers being fudged makes intuitive sense, and almost feels obvious, however...

I can confirm that point on a small scale; it's something I repeatedly mentioned on HN for years. I used to work literally next desk to a small social media marketing agency, that spun out of the company I was employed by. I knew the people running that agency, I got to see how they work, even read and commented on the reports they sent to customers.

It was as GP described, with a twist - the people working in said agency weren't exactly good with numbers. They understood, however, the idea that a graph going up and to the right is good. Despite the numbers having little connection to reality, they wrote reports that highlighted how successful their campaigns were. Those reports were read by customers equally proficient in mathematics, and similarly good at tracking sales on their own side. Bottomline: money changed hands, both sides were happy, the whole thing was still completely untethered from reality.

Make that n=2, probably one of the only useful things I learned from a commercial as a kid.

Hum... You are claiming the GP's claim that the reported numbers are higher than the real ones is false because you once on your lifetime got evidence that the real number is non-zero?

I think he's claiming that showing drano ads to kids could have a positive ROI based on lived experience. To be fair, while the parent post was compelling, it didn't have any "references" either.

The OP never claimed that showing ads to kids didn't have positive ROI.

You did not understand the original comment. They implied it without saying it in as many words. Here's how: they presented the fact that Drano apparently gets a $2 ROI showing ads on TikTok as evidence to back up their claim that the companies measuring the effectiveness of ads are making shit up. You can argue whether that's the intended communication, but clearly that's the communication I received (and probably not just me, hence the other person explaining that Drano ads for kids could have a positive ROI).

As a side note, I must say I feel this conversation took on a negative (and condescending?) tone.

Advertisements used to be that exactly, telling you about a product for a use case.

You probably didn't see that ad at the super bowl.

That's fair, and reasonable. However, to a data scientist, this looks like an anecdote and not data.

Yes, it was definitely just a fun anecdote. Your example of advertising drano to kids made me laugh, and then I remembered being the reason we bought drain cleaner in my home, which made me laugh again, so I shared it.

I definitely appreciated it, though that probably didn't come through in my comment. Thanks for sharing!