Research on Advertising in a Recession

ABSTRACT Based on an extensive review of research on advertising in a recession, the authors identify over 40 related studies. Ten of these studies involve original empirical analyses of cross-sectional or time series data. The rest are theoretical discussions, reviews, cases, or opinions. The empirical studies may be classified into four groups based on the dependent variable analyzed: (1) sensitivity of advertising expenditures to the economy, (2) sensitivity of brand versus private-label share to economic expansions and contractions, (3) impact of advertising in a recession to sales or market share during or after a recession, (4) impact of advertising in a recession to profits during and after the recession. The authors critically review these studies and synthesize the major findings.