Simulating the effects of combining mass media and refer-a-friend

advertising
Gus Breese, Will Hartley, Matthew Ramcharan, Daniel Zyss
12th October 2016
Abstract

Introduction
The objective of this project is to model Mass media advertising, and the recommend a friend scheme, and
create a model that offers the optimal combination of both systems.

Initial Model
Creating a basis for the model
We decided early to look at existing models to base our model on, and we looked in the direction of disease
epidemic models. We decided to base our model on the SIR model, due to its relative simplicity but obvious
similarity to the problem that we were presented with. From a business perspective the population is split into
3 basic groups; individuals who havent used the product yet, individuals who actively use the product, and
individuals who no longer use the product. This matches up very nicely with the SIR model of Susceptible
individuals, who become infected individuals, and finally recovered individuals.
There are clearly some differences between an epidemic and an advertising campaign, thus the groups do
require some refinement, however the way that the groups interact will largely be similar. The infection rate
is proportional to the fraction of the total population that is infected.

Method and Results

Changed from use of random integers to random float less than 1, greater than 0 with probabilities as less
than a certain small value in the python program

Discussion and Conclusion

Figures and Tables

References
[1] Herbert W. Hethcote, The Mathematics of Infectious Diseases, SIAM Review, 2000 http://
leonidzhukov.net/hse/2014/socialnetworks/papers/2000SiamRev.pdf
[2] Jan Medlock, Mathematical Analysis of Epidemiological Models: Introduction, 2010 http://people.
oregonstate.edu/~medlockj/other/mathEpiIntro_I.pdf
[3]