Do companies like Coke and McDonald's really have to advertise?

I was just thinking that everybody knows what Coke and McDonald's are.  Do they really need to waste hundred's of millions of dollars for advertisements?  At this point I am pretty sure only people who have no idea what Coca Cola or McDonald's are living in third world countries or are undiscovered rain forest tribesman.  I understand putting a few billboards or a commercial for a new sandwich or drink.  It just seems like they are so famous and popular that running multimillion dollar ad campaigns just seems wasteful I would understand if they were Pepsi and Burger King.
 
If any one has an answer or a theory I would love to hear it.

Suggesting.  
 
Say you are thirsty. You may not be thinking specifically about coke. but if you see a coke sign, now it's in your head. 
Same thing for McDonalds. 

Yo, sure everyone knows about them now. What happens in a few decades of no ads? None of the young-uns will know what the eff it is. The brands will fall into obscurity and will be considered old and uncool. Advertising keeps the brands fresh!

If they stopped advertising, it wouldn't matter for 6 months to a year. After that, they would cease to be ubiquitous and would see a decline in sales. I have thought quite a bit about this question, and this is the conclusion that I always reach.

Yes.

My guess is the amount of revenue they generate from the advertisements is greater than the cost to advertise. Just guessing though.

People are born everyday.

If they stopped, Pepsi and Burger King would continue to push hard. Soon enough you'd have a new market leader.

It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now.

" It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now. "

It just keeps them in your mind, so when you think about food, you might go to McDonalds. 
 
In practice I find that almost never works on me at all, and if the ad is stupid or does something to piss me off, I will never buy their product for as long as I remember the commercial exists.

" It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now. "

The other day, I was watching TV, which I don't do very often, and a commercial for McDonald's came on. Specifically, a commercial for the Big Mac. I hadn't had a Big Mac in a couple of months. 
 
So I went down to the closest McDonald's and got a Big Mac. 
 
There's your answer.

It helps.  If I see a commercial of something I like, such as doritos or coke before I stopped drinking soda, it would always make me go "Man, I need to get me some doritos/coke/whatever" and I would sometimes end up going through with that and picking some up the next day.  Usually doesn't do anything for me though unless I'm hungry and it's not an annoying commerical.

Coke probably to a lesser extent, but like, McDonalds is always releasing new products and is always doing weird promotional stuff, that needs to get to you somehow. How will you know when Monopoly at McDonalds is without advertisements? :P

It's so that we don't forget about them.
 
The more we see and hear about coke/McDonald's, the more we want it.

it makes sales. it's for the thirsty and hungry people at the moment that they see a coke or mcdonalds they most likely will go get it or get it sometime in the next few days. babies are born everyday.

" It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now. "

" It's so that we don't forget about them.  The more we see and hear about coke/McDonald's, the more we want it. "

Both Coke and McDonald's have major competitors that can take advantage of such a radical drop in advertising. If Coke stopped advertising, the Pepsi people will be all up in that shit, as the kids say... I think.

Umm...I went to a McDonalds for the first time in almost a year the other day. Because I listened to a commercial on my car radio on the way home from school. 
5 words.
 
5 dollars for 20 McNuggets.

" it makes sales. it's for the thirsty and hungry people at the moment that they see a coke or mcdonalds they most likely will go get it or get it sometime in the next few days. babies are born everyday. "

Ads are also good to educate about a new item on a menu, a new deal, or a nearby location where you can get this item.  
A very small portion of ads are actually meant to introduce you to what they're selling, but to get them in your head. A radio ad for a pizza place will play at 5:30 because it catches guys coming home thinking "man, that would be good for dinner", and they go get a pizza.

For companies like these it's all about brand recognition. They need to maintain their place in your subconscious. It's the same reason someone like Ahmadinejad or Saddam has their face plastered all over their country; "I'm everywhere and remember who's in charge!"

" I was just thinking that everybody knows what Coke and McDonald's are.  Do they really need to waste hundred's of millions of dollars for advertisements? "

As luck would have it, I actually teach a class on the psychology of advertising and this sort of question has come up before.  There are a lot of things to factor in when you're thinking about a company with near-ubiquitous market penetration, and they certainly have reasons to advertise beyond letting people know about their products.  A huge company with a huge market share wants to improve or at least maintain that market share, and that becomes increasingly difficult to do as other products come out and are gunning directly for you.  I don't want to just post an entire lecture here, but a few things to consider are advertising from different angles to appeal to different demographics and effectively "cast a wide net", keeping an eye on life cycles of individual products and refreshing them / tailoring ads as necessary to keep them significant, taking advantage of the mere exposure effect, maintaining brand awareness in general, and keeping visibility and accessibility to that brand high.  There is way, way more to this of course, but it's a lot to explain in a forum post.  Just think of it in terms of what might happen if they all suddenly stopped advertising.  Sure, coke is ubiquitous and well know it now, but you're going to see a marked decrease in awareness over time, along with an increase of awareness for competitors.  As that awareness dwindles, you're going to get less and less people that instinctively associate McDonald's with a quick cheap meal, for instance.  Over time, market share would just get smaller and smaller, and who knows where the company would wind up.  Speaking of McDonald's, I could sure go for some delicious McDoubles right about now..yum..McDoubles...

If Coke stopped it's advertising campaign then Pepsi would colour Santa Claus BLUE!
 
 
.........and then we'd all be fucked!

• Kid sees ad for Coke
• Kid gets thirsty
• Kid wants Coke
• Kid asks parent for Coke
• Parent buys Coke for kid
• ?????
• PROFIT!

Drinking Coke and eating McDonald's leads to intimacy.

" If they stopped, Pepsi and Burger King would continue to push hard. Soon enough you'd have a new market leader. "

" @SuperfluousMoniker said:

" It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now. "

Want to go out sometime? "

OP literally has no idea what advertising is.

Yeah, it is all about keeping their products on your mind. This post is a good example; for good or bad, they are in your head and have got you talking about them to other people, even if it is questioning their advertising. Also, Coke, and to a lesser extent McDonalds, have to make sure their product stays in your mind as the true Coke, and not have all cola become a "coke."

Mindshare. What if Coke stopped advertising, yet Pepsi was all over the place? They still have to maintain their dominance on their industries. 

of course!

Yo, I could totally go for a Coke and a Burger. 

@MatPaget said:

" @SuperfluousMoniker said:

" It's an image thing. They aren't telling you what Coke is, they're telling you that Coke makes you popular and attractive. I should note that I am actually drinking a Coke right now. "

Want to go out sometime? "

It's working.

" OP literally has no idea what advertising is. "

Donald Draper does not approve of this thread.

I am too lazy to start writing the full answer to this so I will sum it with yes.

" @HandsomeDead said:

" OP literally has no idea what advertising is. "

Nobody in this thread knows what advertising is. Apart from you, of course. "

" Yo, sure everyone knows about them now. What happens in a few decades of no ads? None of the young-uns will know what the eff it is. The brands will fall into obscurity and will be considered old and uncool. Advertising keeps the brands fresh! "

By them advertising, they are stopping others from using those advertising spots, thus preventing a loss of consumers who might convert to what else they could be seeing and start eating/drinking that instead

" I was just thinking that everybody knows what Coke and McDonald's are.  Do they really need to waste hundred's of millions of dollars for advertisements?  At this point I am pretty sure only people who have no idea what Coca Cola or McDonald's are living in third world countries or are undiscovered rain forest tribesman.  I understand putting a few billboards or a commercial for a new sandwich or drink.  It just seems like they are so famous and popular that running multimillion dollar ad campaigns just seems wasteful I would understand if they were Pepsi and Burger King.  If any one has an answer or a theory I would love to hear it. "

While you all have pretty solid arguments, I do wonder how effective the more old-school advertisements (TV, Radio, Posters) are these days. Companies spend a lot of money on them and it's really hard to gauge the returns of that. I have never ever seen a regular ad for Facebook but it's freaking huge these days, because it goes out of it's way to let the community drag more victims (eh..customers) in.
 
I just wonder how much effect it would have if mc donalds cut back their adviertisement budget in half.

McDonalds needs it.
Coke not so much I think, it's something many people buy and it is almost every shop.