Comments on Robert East and Annik Hogg: Advertising for economic change

R. East and A. Hogg [J. Economic Psychol. (2000)] suggest that Governments should use advertising to increase consumers' product search, price vigilance, demand for quality and complaining in order to increase competition and to improve the state of the economy. Despite their appeal, these ideas are based on set of questionable assumptions. Speci®cally, East and Hogg assume that: consumers are not suciently responsive to the market and that their decisions are often determined by habit, rather than cognition; they are willing and able to devote additional cognitive resources to their purchase decisions; extending product search would be bene®cial for the individual consumer; consumers' decision-making strategies can be modi®ed to suit the needs of the economy at any given point in time. This paper discusses why these assumptions can be challenged and how they can undermine the validity of East and Hogg's views. Ó 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.