The Generic Advertising Controversy: How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going?

Abstract

Since the 1980s, generic advertising programs for dozens of farm commodities have been entangled in a great deal of litigation. The author looks at the history of generic advertising policies, discusses why the litigation arose when it did, and argues that the current round of litigation is simply an inevitable outgrowth of fairly recent Supreme Court rulings on commercial speech. The author further examines some of the economic studies that have been performed. The author predicts an increase in generic advertising litigation based upon the degree of collectivization in an industry and urges economists to bring the controversy into their modeling.