Advertising Makes Bad News Worse

Reported in Brandweek:What should a company do when negative news is being reported about the company? "One school of thought is that maintaining or increasing advertising during such a time will drown out the bad news. The alternative--pulling advertising--seems pretty risky. Nevertheless, a new study that ran in December's Journal of Advertising Research suggests that's exactly what you should do while the bad news runs its course...It found that advertising has an amplifying effect: When the news is good, advertising helps. When it's bad, advertising makes things worse."