CONTENTS

Distributional Effects of Generic Dairy Advertising

Table 1

Director’s Column

Next Meeting

NEC-63 2003 Fall Meeting October 6-7, 2003 Embassy Suites Hotel South Lake Tahoe, CA Evaluation of Non-Advertising Promotion Strategies

Director's Column

by Harry M. Kaiser

We economists have done a lot of research on the impacts of generic advertising on commodity markets. The sheer volume of research that has been conducted by the limited number of economists interested in this area has greatly helped us all better understand the economic consequences of collective advertising by various industries.

However, we are now faced with the reality that non-advertising, promotion activities are being used more over time at the expense of advertising. There are various reasons for this, but perhaps the most important is that the costs of media advertising are escalating faster than the growth in checkoff budgets. At the same time, we do not understand the economic impacts of non-advertising promotion activities as well as we understand advertising. Consequently, this line of inquiry is needed for future research directions.