When brands go dark: A replication and extension – Examining market share of brands that stop advertising for a year or longer

Peilin Phua, Nicole Hartnett, Virginia Beal, Giang Trinh, and Rachel Kennedy

The value of mass media advertising can be demonstrated by quantifying what happens when it is removed.
Phua et al.

Management Slant

  • The study expands and adds robustness to prior evidence that when brands stop advertising, declines become more common and more significant, on average, as time increases.
  • Using market share (where prior research used sales), losses were quantified as declining by 10 percent after one year, 20 percent after two years, and 28 percent after three years relative to the last advertised year, on average.
  • Such quantification facilitates financial forecasting and portfolio decision making concerning advertising cessations.
  • Brand size and market share trajectory before stopping advertising affect the rate of market share decline, so they...

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