It is sometimes good to avoid coming across as really weird or culturally out of touch, and ads can give you some signal on what’s normal and culturally relevant right now. If you’re picking up drinks for a 4th of July party, Bud Light will be very culturally on-brand, Corona would be fine, but a bit less on-brand, and mulled wine would be kinda weird. And I think you can pick this sort of thing up from advertising.
Also, it might be helpful to know roughly what group membership you or other people might be signalling by using a particular product. For example, I drive a Subaru. Subaru has, for a long time, marketed to (what appears to me to be) people who are a bit younger, vote democrat, and spend time in the mountains. This is in contrast to, say, Ram trucks, which are marketed to (what looks to me like) people who vote Republican. If I’m in a context where people who don’t know me very well see my car, I am now aware that they might be biased toward thinking I vote democrat or spend time outdoors. (FWIW, I did a low-effort search for which states have the strongest Subaru sales and it is indeed states with mountains and states with people who vote democrat).
It is sometimes good to avoid coming across as really weird or culturally out of touch, and ads can give you some signal on what’s normal and culturally relevant right now. If you’re picking up drinks for a 4th of July party, Bud Light will be very culturally on-brand, Corona would be fine, but a bit less on-brand, and mulled wine would be kinda weird. And I think you can pick this sort of thing up from advertising.
Also, it might be helpful to know roughly what group membership you or other people might be signalling by using a particular product. For example, I drive a Subaru. Subaru has, for a long time, marketed to (what appears to me to be) people who are a bit younger, vote democrat, and spend time in the mountains. This is in contrast to, say, Ram trucks, which are marketed to (what looks to me like) people who vote Republican. If I’m in a context where people who don’t know me very well see my car, I am now aware that they might be biased toward thinking I vote democrat or spend time outdoors. (FWIW, I did a low-effort search for which states have the strongest Subaru sales and it is indeed states with mountains and states with people who vote democrat).