IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-26-00017.html

Repetition, recall, and advertising

Author

Listed:
  • Ori Zax

    (The Israel Academic College in Ramat-Gan.)

Abstract

Advertising is typically repetitive, yet standard models provide limited guidance on why repetition persists in equilibrium. This paper models advertising as cumulative knowledge production: repeated exposures increase consumer recall and activation at diminishing returns. A monopolist jointly chooses price and advertising repetition, with recall scaling demand multiplicatively. The model rationalizes persistent advertising expenditures without relying on persuasion or asymmetric information and is consistent with empirical evidence on diminishing returns and wearout. Extensions illustrate how the same mechanism applies to political agenda setting and advertising competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Ori Zax, 2026. "Repetition, recall, and advertising," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 46(1), pages 293-301.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-26-00017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2026/Volume46/EB-26-V46-I1-P26.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1993. "A Simple Theory of Advertising as a Good or Bad," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(4), pages 941-964.
    2. Luski, Israel & Wettstein, David, 1994. "The provision of public goods via advertising : Existence of equilibria and welfare analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 309-321, June.
    3. Avinash Dixit & Victor Norman, 1978. "Advertising and Welfare," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17, Spring.
    4. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2006. "Advertising Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 93-113, March.
    5. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    6. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Günter Hitsch & Puneet Manchanda, 2005. "An Empirical Model of Advertising Dynamics," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 107-144, June.
    7. M. L. Vidale & H. B. Wolfe, 1957. "An Operations-Research Study of Sales Response to Advertising," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 370-381, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Laurent Cavenaile & Pau Roldan-Blanco, 2021. "Advertising, Innovation, and Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 251-303, July.
    3. Chan, Tat Y. & Narasimhan, Chakravarthi & Yoon, Yeujun, 2017. "Advertising and price competition in a manufacturer-retailer channel," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 694-716.
    4. Simon P. Anderson & Federico Ciliberto & Jura Liaukonyte & Régis Renault, 2016. "Push-me pull-you: comparative advertising in the OTC analgesics industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 1029-1056, November.
    5. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    6. Griffith, Rachel & Dubois, Pierre & O'Connell, Martin, 2014. "The Effects of Banning Advertising on Demand, Supply and Welfare: Structural Estimation on a Junk Food Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 9942, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Anderson, Simon P. & Gabszewicz, Jean J., 2006. "The Media and Advertising: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 567-614, Elsevier.
    8. Baker Matthew J. & George Lisa M, 2010. "The Role of Television in Household Debt: Evidence from the 1950's," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, May.
    9. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107069978, August.
    10. Salvatore Piccolo & Piero Tedeschi & Giovanni Ursino, 2018. "Deceptive Advertising with Rational Buyers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1291-1310, March.
    11. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2012. "Misleading advertising in duopoly," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(3), pages 1154-1187, August.
    12. Wang, Shinn-Shyr & Stiegert, Kyle W., 2006. "The Duopolistic Firm with Endogenous Risk Control: Case of Persuasive Advertising and Product Differentiation," Staff Paper Series 496, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    13. Lynne Pepall & Daniel Richards, 2021. "Targeted Value-Enhancing Advertising and Price Competition," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(3), pages 443-459, November.
    14. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni, 2016. "Tear in the Iron Curtain: The Impact of Western Television on Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 25-41, March.
    15. Alexander E. Saak, 2012. "Dynamic Informative Advertising of New Experience Goods," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 104-135, March.
    16. Cong, Lin William & Li, Siguang, 2024. "Influencer marketing and product competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    17. Boynton, Robert D. & Schwendiman, Larry, 1980. "Theoretical Approaches to the Economics of Advertising," 1980 Advertising and the Food System, November 6-7, 1980, Warrenton, Virginia 303098, Regional Research Committee NC-117 Studies of the organization and control of the U.S. food system.
    18. Jean Samuel Beuscart & Kevin Mellet, 2008. "Business Models of the Web 2.0: Advertising or The Tale of Two Stories," Post-Print hal-03459866, HAL.
    19. Stivers, Andrew & Tremblay, Victor J., 2005. "Advertising, search costs, and social welfare," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 317-333, July.
    20. Nils‐Henrik M. von der Fehr & Kristin Stevik, 1998. "Persuasive Advertising and Product Differentiation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 113-126, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-26-00017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.