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The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the economics of information-driven product categorization – search vs experience products – when investigating online brand advertising and news synergies.

Randomized controlled post-test experiment with over 400 participants in three treatment groups involving exposures to paid advertising (banner ad-plus-banner ad) and publicity (news article-plus-banner ad and banner ad-plus-news article) for four products. Questionnaire upon web site exit tested differences in brand attitudes among treatment groups and product categories.

Findings indicate that including news about the brand in the online brand communication mix – either before or after ads – generates higher brand attitude scores for experience products. For search products sequence matters and brand attitudes are more positive when consumers are exposed to news articles first followed by advertisements.

Findings limited to the four product categories and student participants.

When promoting search goods online, brand managers should include publicity only before display advertising efforts. For experience goods, publicity generates higher brand attitude scores when included either before or while running display advertising.

First study examining online publicity and advertising synergies from an economics of information theory perspective separating search from experience goods when promoting new/unknown brands online. In the online environment, the line between journalistic/news and promotional/advertising text-based content has become increasingly blurred. Compared to paid online advertising, using third-party attributed communications sources like publicity increases message credibility. Adding product-related news and blog articles to banner advertisements may benefit from synergistic effects and have consumers process the brand message more extensively. The order of exposure to the different brand messages matters when promoting search as opposed to experience products online.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the response of the spinal cord, the transmembrane potential, during lumbar magnetic stimulation, using a figure of eight coil.

In order to obtain a precise stimulation of the spinal cord and not the nearby nervous fibres, the coil from the electric circuit of the magnetic stimulator is optimized. The new proposed design is based on the turns’ placement inside the coil, the number of turns required to produce activation. Once the coil configuration is established, the paper addresses other issues that need to be solved: reducing power consumption (the low efficiency of power transfer from the coil to the tissue is a major drawback) and reducing coil heating.

The traditional commercial coils, used for magnetic stimulation in some preliminary experiments, had proved their inability to specifically stimulate the target tissue, without activating the surrounding areas and the low efficiency of power transfer from the coil to the nervous tissue. A more realistic modelling of the stimulating coil, based on the distribution of turns inside the coil can lead to directly stimulation of the spinal cord, during lumbar magnetic stimulation.

If the electrical circuit of the magnetic stimulator is improved, the direct stimulation of the spinal cord is obtained; so, this technique could facilitate functional motor activities, including standing and stepping in paralyzed people, without requiring implantation of electrodes like in electrical stimulation.

The authors underlined that the spinal cord stimulation can be achieved by magnetic stimulation, only if the parameters of the stimulator circuit are optimized. Therefore an original and realistic modelling of the inductive coil was proposed based on number and turns’ distribution within the coil. The coil is designed so that reducing the excessive heating makes it difficult in obtaining a more frequent repetition of stimulus.