Comparative versus Informative Advertising in Oligopolistic Markets

The present paper examines endogenously the firms ��incentives to invest in informative and comparative advertising, in an oligopolistic market with horizontally differentiated products where competition take place in quantities. We show that, in equilibrium the fi��rms undertake a mix advertising strategy that combines both informative and comparative advertising investments. We further compare our results over the equilibrium market outcomes and the social welfare obtained under the endogenous advertising con��figuration with the benchmark case, without firms' ��advertising activities, and the cases of mere informative and mere comparative advertising. We demonstrate that the equilibrium market outcomes, as well as, the welfare alter signifi��cantly depending on the type(s) of advertising that fi��rms have available in the market and the degree of the market competition.