It is important to recognize that generic fluid milk advertising is a cooperative effort quite distinct from branded advertising. Generic advertising disseminates information about a nearly homogeneous product, while branded dairy product advertising attempts to differentiate one product from another in the mind of a consumer. Because of this, we confined our research only to generic fluid milk advertising. Television receives eighty-nine percent of the advertising budget while each of the others gets less than five percent. The reason for the bias toward television has to do with consumer response.
Some media engage the consumer more quickly and the advertising message is retained longer.
This is true for television relative to other media outlets. We have estimated relative effectiveness of each advertising outlet using an economic simulation model. The model relates the amount of fluid milk sold in each quarter to factors affecting demand such as the retail price of milk, consumer income, the price of milk substitutes, seasons of the year, and, for present purposes, the amount of television, radio, print, and outdoor advertising. By relating the demand factors to fluid milk sales, our model can approximate net percentage changes in sales for a given percentage change in television, radio, print, or outdoor advertising expenditures. Figure 3 illustrates television advertising s disproportionate impact on fluid milk sales.