Recall that the General Flakes Company from Example 4.1 of Chapter 4 sells a brand of low-fat breakfast cereal that appeals to people of all age groups and both genders. The company has advertised...

Recall that the General Flakes Company from Example 4.1 of Chapter 4 sells a brand of low-fat breakfast cereal that appeals to people of all age groups and both genders. The company has advertised this product in various media for a number of years and has accumulated data on its advertising effectiveness. For example, the company has tracked the number of exposures to young men from ads placed on a particular television show for five different time periods. In each of these time periods, a different number of ads was used. Specifically, the numbers of ads were 1, 8, 20, 50, and 100. The corresponding numbers of exposures (in millions) were 4.7, 22.1, 48.7, 90.3, and 130.5. What type of nonlinear response function might fit these data well?

Objective To use nonlinear optimization to find the response function (from a given class of functions) that best fits the historical data.