Digital and traditional media advertising and business performance of agribusiness firms – Empirical evidence in Japan

Abstract

Can digital media advertising strategies benefit agribusiness farms? This study addresses this issue by investigating the extent to which digital and traditional media advertising strategies affect agribusiness performance and the underlying factors associated with agribusiness farms' adoption decisions. We estimate a non-linear simultaneous equation system and use a population-based survey data of agricultural processing farms in Japan. We find that female and younger farm operators', as well as incorporated agribusiness farms, are more likely to adopt digital media advertising. The sales value of digital media advertising users is higher by 51% than that of non-users. Moreover, the effect of digital advertising is not equally distributed among farms. Family farms and farms located in rural areas benefit more from the adoption of digital media advertising.