Does advertising affect market size? Some evidence from the United Kingdom

This paper is an attempt at tackling the question ‘Does advertising affect market size?’This is an important question and not as academic as it may sound to both advertising practitioners and non-practitioners, albeit for different reasons. Practitioners rarely ask themselves the question. They are usually involved in brand wars of one kind or another.Aside from specifically generic campaigns (which are rare beasts), few marketing plans address the question for the simple reason that it is perceived as irrelevant. In sharp contrast non-practitioners by and large feel the question is academic, since it is self-evident that the purpose of advertising is to ‘sell’ and therefore to increase market size. This paper attempts to bridge the grand divide by a little new thinking.