This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Games and Economic Behavior. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2008 Elsevier B.V.I consider an oligopoly model where, prior to price competition, firms invest in persuasive advertising and induce brand loyalty in consumers who would otherwise buy the cheapest alternative on the market. This setting, in which persuasive advertising is introduced to homogeneous product markets, provides an alternative explanation for price dispersion phenomena. Despite ex ante symmetry, the equilibrium profile of advertising outlays is asymmetric. It follows that endogenously determined brand loyal consumer bases are not symmetric across firms. This raises a robustness question regarding Varian's “model of sales” where symmetry is exogenously assumed.IVI
