[vbs_redlof]

It's not so clear coordination games apply to advertising though. The original applications of coordination games were in modelling economic situations in which there were benefits to mass coordination--events like bank runs and speculative currency attacks where there is an explicit monetary payoff for players to correctly identify and coordinate on a mutual outcome.

With advertising, it's not so clear whether people derive value from buying the same beer everyone is buying (although for certain products, sure). Is someone more inclined to buy a Corona or a bag of Doritos from merely knowing that others have seen the ad?

Then again, if the ad is particularly funny or surprising then knowing that others know about the ad certainly makes it easier to casually converse about the ad with others. Maybe then I'll buy a corona just for shits and giggles, who knows. If this is what is meant by 'entering the culture', then maybe this theory holds water. It just seems like a really expensive way to do it.