Advertising and product demand

Neil Barnard and Prof Andrew S C Ehrenberg

The second of three JOAB ('Justifying Our Advertising Budgets') papers published by Admap. JOAB is a project run by the South Bank Business School, researching fundamental questions about how advertising works.

Advertising and product demand

Andrew Ehrenberg and Neil Barnard, South Bank University, believe advertising cannot persuade people to buy. What, therefore, is its purpose?

Andrew S C Ehrenberg and Neil Barnard

It is at times hotly debated whether the advertising of competitive brands affects product-category demand.

On the one hand, advertising is thought to persuade people to buy things – why else should advertisers continually spend billions? On the other hand, management is often concerned that advertising has failedto increase its sales and is perhaps not working at all. These polar extremes seem to be...

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