Agricultural Economics (Amsterdam, Netherlands), This paper tests for the influence of advertising on the inter-product distribution of consumer demand for non-durable goods and services in the UK, 1963–1996. The long-run demand for seven categories of non-durable products is modelled through an advertising-augmented version of the almost ideal demand system (AIDS), which is incorporated into an error-correction model to allow for short-run dynamic adjustments to long-run equilibrium positions. Model estimates confirm that the restrictions of price homogeneity and symmetry appear to be consistent with the data, yield measures of the various types of demand elasticity that are in general plausible, confirm the strong influence of prices on the allocation of consumer expenditure, but find little evidence to support the hypothesis that advertising has the power to effect marked changes in the inter-product pattern of consumer demand in the UK.
Via online issue. 1 page., Reports on audience research about the effects of advertising among those who had been exposed to content about a salmonella outbreak.
Revealed evidence that most of the observed change in egg demand between 1987 and 1995 could be explaind b y dietary cholesterol concerns. Advertising efforts resulted in net benefits to egg producers.
Robert D. Stuart, Jr., president of Quaker Oats Company, testifies that over a seven-year period his company spent $15 million to advertise the nutritional value of Life cereal. "In the end, we found that this message was getting across to only 9% of consumers. Most people were eating it, not because of nutrition, but because they liked it." "It must be understood - unless we simply want to talk to ourselves - that the most nutritious product in the world does no one any good until it is consumed."
