ll look into the role of advertising and promotion as one of the primary tools that managers can use to influence customer behavior. Sethuraman et al. (2011) write about advertising elasticities, which is the impact that varying advertising levels has on sales. For this article, you are best served to focus on the introduction and discussion, while only skimming over the empirical modeling. Next, we listen to the first of a two-part Freakonomics podcast series on "Does Advertising Actually Work?" by exploring the role of TV. Finally, we read about the financial philosophy Patagonia and think about how it relates to resource tradeoffs.

. According to the implications from Sethuraman and colleagues, does advertising work? What is the relationship between advertising and sales, as measured by advertising elasticities? How should companies respond during times of economic downturn? Relate your discussion as well to the Freakonomics podcast of the efficacy of advertising. . Summarize Patagonia's financial philosophy. What is it, and how does it relate to their approach to managing resource tradeoffs? How do they view profit and growth?