Competitive Persuasive Advertising Under Consumer Loss Aversion

Abstract I present a model to describe the effects of persuasive advertising targeted at consumers with expectation-based reference-dependent preferences. Persuasive advertising is competitive and increases the salience of advertised products while decreasing the salience of competing products. Consumers’ gain–loss utility associated with the expectation to buy the most salient product is inflated, while gain–loss utility associated with the expectation to buy the least salient product is deflated. I show that under moderate levels of loss aversion and product differentiation persuasive advertising has strictly anti-competitive effects, whenever consumers are aware of prices but uncertain about their individual match value from a purchase.