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There's an excellent book called Rational Ritual[1][2][3] which develops this idea much more fully. The thesis is that common knowledge (I know something, and I

There's an excellent book called Rational Ritual[1][2][3] which develops this idea much more fully. The thesis is that common knowledge (I know something, and I know everyone else knows it too) is very powerful and rationally drives people's behavior. One of the arguments in the book revolves around the absurd pricing of advertising during big public events like the Super Bowl. If advertisers weren't concerned about the common knowledge aspect of their messages, they would air their ads when the cost per viewer is lowest. And you do see this with non-social goods, which tend to be advertised during off hours. But companies producing social goods like beer pay much more per viewer for prime-time and Super Bowl slots in order to get their product into the cultural zeitgeist. If you see something in a Super Bowl ad, you know most other people have seen it too. [1] http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9998.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9998.html [2] PDF of the original 2001 manuscript: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/cpworkshop/papers/Chwe1.pdf http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/cpworkshop/papers/Chwe1.p... [3] http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Ritual-Culture-Coordination-Knowledge/dp/0691114714 http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Ritual-Culture-Coordination-K...

chrismcb 12y ago
I would imagine the cost per viewer for a Super Bowl commercial isn't that high. Super Bowl commercials are expensive because there are so many viewers. In addition to the extra press surrounding them.
- salmonellaeater 12y ago
  Super Bowl ads cost about the same per viewer as prime-time TV slots ($35 per thousand in 2014). Both cost about four times as much per viewer as daytime TV. Primetime: http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4715 http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4715 Daytime: http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4710 http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4710
  - makomk 12y ago
    With daytime TV you can only reach consumers that are watching TV during the daytime though. That's a lot of potential customers that will never, ever see any of your ads.
vbs_redlof 12y ago
It's not so clear coordination games apply to advertising though. The original applications of coordination games were in modelling economic situations in which there were benefits to mass coordination--events like bank runs and speculative currency attacks where there is an explicit monetary payoff for players to correctly identify and coordinate on a mutual outcome. With advertising, it's not so clear whether people derive value from buying the same beer everyone is buying (although for certain products, sure). Is someone more inclined to buy a Corona or a bag of Doritos from merely knowing that others have seen the ad? Then again, if the ad is particularly funny or surprising then knowing that others know about the ad certainly makes it easier to casually converse about the ad with others. Maybe then I'll buy a corona just for shits and giggles, who knows. If this is what is meant by 'entering the culture', then maybe this theory holds water. It just seems like a really expensive way to do it.

chrismcb 12y ago

I would imagine the cost per viewer for a Super Bowl commercial isn't that high. Super Bowl commercials are expensive because there are so many viewers. In addition to the extra press surrounding them.

salmonellaeater 12y ago
Super Bowl ads cost about the same per viewer as prime-time TV slots ($35 per thousand in 2014). Both cost about four times as much per viewer as daytime TV. Primetime: http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4715 http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4715 Daytime: http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4710 http://www.tvb.org/trends/4718/4710
- makomk 12y ago
  With daytime TV you can only reach consumers that are watching TV during the daytime though. That's a lot of potential customers that will never, ever see any of your ads.

vbs_redlof 12y ago

It's not so clear coordination games apply to advertising though. The original applications of coordination games were in modelling economic situations in which there were benefits to mass coordination--events like bank runs and speculative currency attacks where there is an explicit monetary payoff for players to correctly identify and coordinate on a mutual outcome. With advertising, it's not so clear whether people derive value from buying the same beer everyone is buying (although for certain products, sure). Is someone more inclined to buy a Corona or a bag of Doritos from merely knowing that others have seen the ad? Then again, if the ad is particularly funny or surprising then knowing that others know about the ad certainly makes it easier to casually converse about the ad with others. Maybe then I'll buy a corona just for shits and giggles, who knows. If this is what is meant by 'entering the culture', then maybe this theory holds water. It just seems like a really expensive way to do it.