A dynamic evolution model of human opinion as affected by advertising

•We propose a model to study opinion dynamics as affected by advertising.•The marginal influence of friends will decrease with an increasing number of friends.•We use Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve to describe the decline of opinion.•A proper assessment of advertising’s influence and coverage is necessary.•The intensity of exchanging opinion is a key factor in the success of advertising.

We propose a new model to investigate the dynamics of human opinion as affected by advertising, based on the main idea of the CODA model and taking into account two practical factors: one is that the marginal influence of an additional friend will decrease with an increasing number of friends; the other is the decline of memory over time. Simulations show several significant conclusions for both advertising agencies and the general public. A small difference of advertising’s influence on individuals or advertising coverage will result in significantly different advertising effectiveness within a certain interval of value. Compared to the value of advertising’s influence on individuals, the advertising coverage plays a more important role due to the exponential decay of memory. Meanwhile, some of the obtained results are in accordance with people’s daily cognition about advertising. The real key factor in determining the success of advertising is the intensity of exchanging opinions, and people’s external actions always follow their internal opinions. Negative opinions also play an important role.