Is a price increase a necessary condition for an efficient generic advertising programme?

Agricultural economists postulate, that generic advertising should increase the price. Otherwise the programm is nor rentabel. Marketing experts do no t agree in this condition. They argue, that an increase in the share of the market does also indicate the efficiency of a programm, even though the pr ice decreases. This contradiction results from an incomplete set of assumpt ions in the conventional normative economic models. Generic advertising doe s not only increase the demand of the consumers. Special in German programs the generic advertising activity is part of a complete marketing programm, which also may reduce transaction costs in the marketing channel. A normat ive analyze proofs, that price can decrease, market share increases and, un der certain circumstances, the program is yet rentabel. An empirical exampl e demonstrates, that the aggregation problem of econometric analyses may le ad to an underestimate of the efficiency of genetic advertising programs. A n alternative approach is proposed and tested.