Firms advertise for different motives: (i) to make consumers aware (i.e., the informative motive), (ii) to increase the spending by current customers (i.e., the persuasive motive), and (iii) to limit competitors' expansion by capturing consumers' attention (i.e., the anticompetitive motive). This paper develops a new general equilibrium model in which consumers dynamically become aware of goods, to study how these motives evolve over the firm life cycle and their aggregate effects. The calibrated model shows that the informative motive is the primary driver of advertising and that advertising has an overall positive aggregate effect, not only through financing entertaining media goods, but also through expanding product awareness. Without advertising, firms remain smaller, which in turn reduces the incentives to create new products. Distinct from existing literature, the planner values media goods even when their entertainment value is negligible, as they serve as a vehicle for product awareness. Finally, the model suggests a modest welfare gain from subsidizing advertising.

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