Advertising and the Marketplace

Book excerpt: This accessible and comprehensive textbook explores the role of advertising in the marketplace. It investigates how firms’ advertising strategies are informative, persuasive or add value to the product advertised. The book explains in detail empirical methodologies used to identify the impact of advertising on consumer demand and on market structure and reviews some recent empirical findings. It concludes with an in-depth exploration of digital advertising and auctions along with a framework for current antitrust investigations into two-sided platforms (Google, Facebook) that are funded by advertising revenues.