Business POV

Becker Fellow, Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory, University of Chicago, 2005-Present Faculty Research Fellow, Labor Studies, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005-Present

Traditional thinking says that consumers who have used a product for a while are going to be less receptive to ads for it. Therefore, ads devoted to informing new consumers about the product are a better option. But Jesse Shapiro, from the University of Chicago, doesn’t think that’s necessarily true. Here, the economist explains his "'Memory-Jamming' Theory of Advertising," in which he argues that creating ads for people who are already customers can be a key -- and less expensive -- way to spend your media dollar simply because "you conflate the strength of the advertising based on the strength of a user's past experiences with the product."

Shapiro is currently a Becker Fellow at the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago. He's also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.