ftlpdx,

The reason insurance companies advertise to ad naseum, phone solicitors call you during dinner, and spam reaches your mailbox, is because it works for certain unreached segments of the population.

If a company does an action that alienates more customers than it gains, then it will change behavior. At least, for most money oriented firms with a fixed eye toward the bottom line. Assuming it is not guided by more ethical virtues.

You might want to check out "How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market" by Gerald Zaltman. It has a ton of ideas exactly about this topic. Zaltman proposes that marketers are missing the point with consumers because most their methods (including surveys) assume that consumers are able to verbalize most of their feelings and wishes, while the latest research indicate that this is not so. Anyways the topic is too involved to discuss here in detail. You might want to check out the book.

If you want this car insurance company to 'feel your pain', then I suggest you massively overreact and launch a nationwide boycott of companies that air annoying commercials.

But you probably don't care that much; its not that painful.

mazda zoom zoom commercials drive me insane. mazda will feel my pain and doubtlessly the pain of many others who hate them so much they vow never EVER to buy a stinking god damn mazda.