It is estimated that companies in the U.S. spent $800 million in 1998 to quot;acquire talent -- entertainers, athletes and other high profile personalities -- to spotlight in advertising, promotion and PR campaignsquot; (IEG Endorsement Insider). Such ads appear in a variety of media. How do we...

Over the past ten years there has been increased recognition of the importance of publicity as a means of generating product awareness. Despite this, previous research has seldom investigated the impact of publicity on demand. We contribute to the literature by (i) proposing a new method for the...

Many heavily advertised consumer products are both well established and have no obvious quality variation. A signaling explanation for advertising in these product categories is therefore not compelling. In this paper we develop a model of firm advertising based on the notion that consumer...

Many advertised products are established and have little quality variation. For these products advertising signaling explanations are unconvincing. We develop a coordination model of advertising with consumers observing ads probabilistically and never observing advertising levels. Consumers who...

We develop a model that endogenizes both advertising format ads with or without celebrity endorsements and the endorsement fee. Marketing studies suggest that celebrities enhance brand recall and perception of product value. In our model, ads featuring celebrities occur when the product market...