Targeted persuasive advertising

• Main Author: Willmore, Christopher
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2008
• Subjects: Advertising; Direct marketing; Health care Canada
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1550

The three essays of this thesis consider a firm’s choice of advertising campaign when advertising may be conditioned on the preferences of individual consumers. In essay one, I show that a monopolist will use such advertising to turn sub-marginal consumers, who are not quite willing to pay for the good, into marginal consumers who are indifferent to paying for the good or going without it. The second essay considers the use of targeted advertising in duopoly, when one of the firms does not have access to advertising. I find that advertising will target those consumers most likely to switch to the non-advertising firm. Each firm sets a price just high enough to capture the consumers on either side of the advertising 'barrier’. The third essay looks at targeted advertising in the context of Canadian public health. When the goals of government and industry are aligned, advertising by the firm may be an alternative superior to government advertising in the form of a public health education campaign.