Advertising: Strongly Persuasive or Nudging?

Abstract

One view of advertising is that it will increase the advertised brand’s sales by persuading brand-switchers to become loyal to the brand. An alternative view is that advertising’s main function is to reinforce and occasionally nudge consumers’ existing propensities to buy your brand, as part of their split-loyal brand portfolios. Exclusively loyal customers are not seen as specially important to sales. The evidence supports the split-loyalty/reinforcing-and-nudging perspective.