What is illegal advertising?

What would happen if a large company like Coca-Cola suddenly stopped advertising?

• My friend and I are having an argument: we want to know how valuable advertising really is for companies like Coca-Cola, which are already known by virtually everyone they could be advertising to. The question is, what would happen if such a large company suddenly STOPPED advertising? My opinion is that competitors' brand names and products would gradually replace Coca-Cola products in the minds of consumers; this will ultimately lead to a decrease in sales and a loss for the company. I feel this is common sense, but his opinion is that these companies are so universal and embedded in our culture that there is no need for advertising to keep sales as high as they are. In other words, cutting advertising will have no adverse effect on revenue. We can't find any studies which might help to answer our question, so I'm looking for EDUCATED opinions that might shed some light on the argument, not just intuition or guesswork. What do you think?

• Answer:

  Apart from all bullshits ,first of all there sales would decrease.