Attention competition with advertisement

In the new digital age, information is available in large quantities. Since information consumes primarily the attention of its recipients, the scarcity of attention is becoming the main limiting factor. In this study, we investigate the impact of advertisement pressure on a cultural market where consumers have a limited attention capacity. A model of competition for attention is developed and investigated analytically and by simulation. Advertisement is found to be much more effective when the attention capacity of agents is extremely scarce. We have observed that the market share of the advertised item improves if dummy items are introduced to the market while the strength of the advertisement is kept constant.

Figure 1

Tree diagram for possible selections.

Figure 2

The market share of the advertised item as a function of the attention capacity ratio by (a) simulation and (b) analytic approaches. $F_{5\%}$, $F_{\min }$, and the asymptote line from Ref. [7] are given for comparison.

Figure 3

Effect of item size on the market share of the advertised item for $p={10}^{-1}$ is investigated as a function of the attention capacity ratio.

Figure 4

The relative market share $R_{\nu =k}$ at $\nu ={10}^3$ is investigated as a function of the attention capacity ratio.