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• 20 Jun 2023
• Cold Call Podcast

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

In late October 2022, Elon Musk officially took Twitter private and became the company’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition saga. He appointed himself CEO and brought in his own team to clean house. Musk needed to take decisive steps to succeed against the major opposition to his leadership from both inside and outside the company. Twitter employees circulated an open letter protesting expected layoffs, advertising agencies advised their clients to pause spending on Twitter, and EU officials considered a broader Twitter ban. What short-term actions should Musk take to stabilize the situation, and how should he approach long-term strategy to turn around Twitter? Harvard Business School assistant professor Andy Wu and co-author Goran Calic, associate professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, discuss Twitter as a microcosm for the future of media and information in their case, “Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk.”

• 06 Jan 2021
• Working Paper Summaries

Aggregate Advertising Expenditure in the US Economy: What's Up? Is It Real?

We analyze total United States advertising spending from 1960 to 2018. In nominal terms, the elasticity of annual advertising outlays with respect to gross domestic product appears to have increased substantially beginning in the late 1990s, roughly coinciding with the dramatic growth of internet-based advertising.

• 15 Sep 2020

Time and the Value of Data

This paper studies the impact of time-dependency and data perishability on a dataset's effectiveness in creating value for a business, and shows the value of data in the search engine and advertisement businesses perishes quickly.

• 19 May 2020
• Research & Ideas

Why Privacy Protection Notices Turn Off Shoppers

It seems counterintuitive, but website privacy protection notices appear to discourage shoppers from buying, according to Leslie John. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 02 Mar 2020
• What Do You Think?

Are Candor, Humility, and Trust Making a Comeback?

SUMMING UP: Have core leadership values been declining in recent years? If so, how do we get them back? James Heskett's readers provide answers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 06 Aug 2019

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

Super Bowl advertising is increasingly about using storytelling to sell corporate brands rather than products. Shelle Santana discusses why stories win (or fumble) on game day. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 27 Jul 2019

Does Facebook's Business Model Threaten Our Elections?

America's 2016 presidential election was the target of voter manipulation via social media, particularly on Facebook. George Riedel thinks history is about to repeat itself. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 10 Oct 2018

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

Companies that encourage consumers to vote online should be forewarned—they may expect more than you promise, according to research by Michael Norton, Leslie John, and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 27 Sep 2018

Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data

Online retailers face the challenge of leveraging the rich data they collect on their websites to uncover insights about consumer behavior. This study proposes a practical and tractable model of economic behavior that can reveal helpful patterns of cross-product substitution. The model can be used to simulate optimal prices.

• 18 Jun 2018

Warning: Scary Warning Labels Work!

If you want to convince consumers to stay away from unhealthy diet choices, don't be subtle about possible consequences, says Leslie John. These graphically graphic warning labels seem to do the trick. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 18 Sep 2017

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

A decade-and-a-half after the dawn of social media marketing, brands are still learning what works and what doesn't with consumers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 26 Jul 2017

The Revolution in Advertising: From Don Draper to Big Data

The Mad Men of advertising are being replaced by data scientists and analysts. In this podcast, marketing professor John Deighton and advertising legend Sir Martin Sorrell discuss the positives and negatives of digital marketing. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 13 Mar 2017

Hiding Products From Customers May Ultimately Boost Sales

Is it smart for retailers to display their wares to customers a few at a time or all at once? The answer depends largely on the product category, according to research by Kris Johnson Ferreira and Joel Goh. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 06 Mar 2017

Why Comparing Apples to Apples Online Leads To More Fruitful Sales

The items displayed next to a product in online marketing displays may determine whether customers buy that product, according to a new study by Uma R. Karmarkar. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 13 Feb 2017

Paid Search Ads Pay Off for Lesser-Known Restaurants

Researchers Michael Luca and Weijia Dai wanted to know if paid search ads pay off for small businesses such as restaurants. The answer: Yes, but not for long. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 08 Dec 2016

How Wayfair Built a Furniture Brand from Scratch

What was once a collection of 240 home furnishing sites is now a single, successful brand, Wayfair.com. How that brand developed over time and the challenges and opportunities presented by search engine marketing are discussed by Thales Teixeira. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 04 May 2016

What Does Boaty McBoatface Tell Us About Brand Control on the Internet?

SUMMING UP. Boaty McBoatface may have been shot down as the social-media sourced name of a research vessel, but James Heskett's readers are up to their hip-boots in opinions on the matter. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 02 May 2016

Why People Don’t Vote--and How a Good Ground Game Helps

Recent research by Vincent Pons shows that campaigners knocking on the doors of potential voters not only improves overall turnout but helps individual candidates win more of those votes. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 21 Mar 2016

Can Customer Reviews Be 'Managed?'

Consumers increasingly rely on peer reviews on TripAdvisor and other sites to make purchase decisions, so it makes sense that companies have a stake in wanting to shape those opinions. But can they? Thales Teixeira says a good product trumps all. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 28 Oct 2015

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

How do you build a brand amid the uncertainties and opportunities of a developing market? Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta shares lessons learned from Ranjan Kapur, an iconic figure in the Indian advertising industry. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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How to Conduct Advertising Research

Advertising research will help you understand your customers and prospects so you can design the perfect campaign and then measure its success.

Strawberries and cream. Rock and roll. Research and analysis. Some things just work well together.

Advertising research brings together two strategies together to help improve your marketing from two different approaches. It takes a 360-degree view to maximize the lessons you can take from each marketing campaign.

The first is about laying the foundations for good marketing: understanding your audience. The second is a retrospective look at how the campaign performed, allowing you to retain elements that worked and remove ones that didn’t.

What is advertising research?

Advertising research is a specialized form of market research which aims to discover which ads will be most effective with the existing and potential customer base. It does this both through detailed research before a campaign and by analyzing the success of the campaign.

The aim of advertising research is to understand your customers and their motivations better so that you can produce better ads that demonstrate why your product meets their needs. Once you have an understanding of the people you are targeting, an analysis of the campaign will tell you how successful the campaign was, and help you to iterate your campaigns to continually improve results.

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Conducting social media research: how to find real consumer insights.

Social is a rich source of data but only if you know how to conduct good social media research. This post explains the methods for finding consumer insights

Conducting pre-campaign advertising research

The advertising research carried out before the campaign is about understanding your audience. There will be different groups of prospects and customers. The research should uncover the different market segments so you can target your campaign at specific groups.

Online surveys can be easily set up with sites like Survey Monkey, and are one of the best ways to understand your customers. This allows you to ask specific questions, although you need to take response bias into account and carefully consider the questions you ask. It might be fun to find out their favorite Madonna songs, but too many questions may mean a smaller response rate.

Google Analytics

Analytics can tell you more than the amount of traffic you are receiving. The Audience tab shows geography, interests, and a range of demographics.

Keyword research

Conducting online keyword research is the foundation of SEO, but it also tells you what consumers are interested in and the relative level of interest. It also helps to reveal the language being used to talk about these topics.

Customer reviews

Reading customer reviews can highlight common problems or wishes for a product and common frustrations.

Q&A sites

Sites like Quora contain questions and crowdsourced answers on a wide range of topics, including discussions about brands. These sites can give you an idea of the questions and concerns that people have in relation to your service or product.

Competitor analysis

Looking at your competitors’ websites and social media accounts can provide useful information about consumers that are shopping in your vertical but have chosen not to buy from your brand. Don’t hate on them; find a way to make them come around to your side.

Blog comments

Does your blog have comments enabled? If so, reading through any comments is a good way of discovering questions your audience might have.

Google Trends and Consumer Barometer

Google Trends can help you to understand if a topic is becoming more or less popular. The Consumer Barometer  allows you to build interactive charts with various filters applied, although the questions are limited to consumer online behavior.

Syndicated data

Government data is available which is free and can help you understand a group, and  several other sources  can also be accessed for free.

Twitter Insiders

Twitter Insiders is a 12,000 strong focus group of US and UK Twitter users who can be asked to perform a range of activities over a four to six week period. It’s an interesting concept of a focus group at scale.

Social media

Comments on your social media profile or posts can be a good source of information. Likes, shares, and other social media metrics can be useful to understand how popular your campaign is.

Social intelligence

To really make the most of social media, and turn millions of organic conversations into a giant focus group, you need a good social listening platform. A tool like Brandwatch will allow you to gain an in-depth research into your audience and the segments within it, as this guide to social media research demonstrates .

The simple audience research starts by searching for mentions of your brand and products. You can then look at the inbuilt details about these people. All mentions are marked up with gender, profession, location and interests when they are crawled, so there is no extra work for you to do.

With a little manual work, more detailed insights can be surfaced. One method is to build a panel of users who have mentioned your brand or industry (perhaps more than once in a set period, so the group more accurately represents repeat customers rather than one-offs).

Depending on the size of your search results, you can take a sample or use the whole data set, and read through each mention. Brandwatch allows you to assign unlimited tags to each mention, meaning you can tag emotional responses, mentions that include you and a competitor, author types (say for example if the buyer and user are different for your product).

Once you have tagged the mentions you can start to analyze further and cross the different categories and tags to unearth more detail about your audience.

Conducting post-campaign advertising research

Campaign analysis is a simple task for a social intelligence platform and by combining it with other data you can build up an accurate picture of the response to your campaign.

If you have set up UTM codes your web analytics will be able to tell you how traffic came to your site, and if it was as a result of your campaign.

Email automation software will tell you open rates and click-thru rates. You can benchmark this against previous efforts or look at an industry study.

Social intelligence can help to understand some solid campaign metrics and provide a deeper understanding of the effect the campaign had. You can take some of your advertising research from the earlier stage and look at what has changed in response to the campaign. You can also use it to write a social media report , describing the response to the campaign on social.

Volume of mentions

A simple metric that will give you an indication of whether your campaign has increased brand awareness and conversation around the brand.

Our analysis shows that up to 96% of brand conversations happened outside owned channels, or with mentions that don’t tag the brand, meaning a social intelligence is the only way to pick up all the conversation around your campaign.

Share of voice

While you might see an increase in your number of mentions across the web, you want to benchmark this against your competitors to see how you have increased your share of voice in comparison to them. You can also break share of voice down further, to see who is winning a particular segment.

Reach is the potential number of people that those mentions will be seen by. It takes into account the number of followers of each author who mentions you. If your campaign included a celebrity or influencer, they are likely to generate much higher reach.

How many people actually took an action when seeing your campaign? This can give you an indication of the number of people that actively engaged with the campaign. These people would be more likely to recall it even if they didn’t go on to click through to your site.

News coverage

Part of your campaign analysis will be to understand how many media mentions you earned and categorize them into different tiered publications.

Social intelligence will make sure you don’t miss any mentions, and also make it easy to categorize the publications. Mentions are automatically categorized by site type. This allows you to read through the news mentions and report on the top publications that have covered your campaign.

Purchase intent

You can create complex Boolean queries in a social intelligence tool like Brandwatch, meaning you can measure if purchase intent language has increased .

Monitoring for increases in this type of language can again give you an indication of the number of people who have seen the campaign and intend to take an action but have not done so yet.

Sentiment and emotional response

You can easily monitor for positive or negative responses to your campaign as a good social intelligence tool will have sentiment analysis built in.

This can give you an overview of public perception, and you can categorize mentions to understand how sentiment changes in relation to the brand, products, or campaign itself.

As mentioned earlier, mentions can be manually tagged to understand the emotional response to the campaign.

Brand associations

You can discover the qualities people associate with your brand or product by creating rules that segment mentions of your brand that feature adjectives to discover brand associations . Monitoring these over time can reveal changing attitudes and associations that your campaign has influenced.

Conducting research before your campaign and measuring the impact of your advertising is the best method for ensuring success. Understanding who you are marketing to will help design a campaign that is likely to connect with those people and their needs. Measuring and refining your marketing is the fine tuning that will make your efforts really shine.

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Advertising Research

• First Online: 13 January 2024

Cite this chapter

• Manukonda Rabindranath 3 &
• Aradhana Kumari Singh 4  

349 Accesses

This chapter gives an overview of conducting research in the field of advertising. Research is very vital for any business entity and companies. But when it comes to creative field like advertising research plays a significant role in producing creative content that instantly grab the attention of its incidence. Creativity is the heart of advertising while research is the backbone of advertising. Without appropriate research, even creativity also fails. Advertising promotes products and brands to increase sales of the advertised products or brands. Without proper research, it is difficult to achieve advertising goals and objectives. Research helps to understand the nature of potential target consumers very well. It is extremely needed to identify prospective consumers and to understand their buying behaviour. What influence them to prefer one product over the other product of the same category? The answer to this question lies in research. Research is also important to evaluate the effectiveness of the ad. It is also vital to find out the result of the efforts put into the advertising campaign. Advertisers spend a lot of money on advertising every year. Because of this, it is important to evaluate how well the advertising copy and the final ad work to influence consumers and get a good response to the advertised products. Marketers have a firm belief that the process of advertising that is not backed by research activities is a waste of time and effort. Research activities in advertising are usually performed by advertising agencies on the demand of their clients. There is an individual department that only deals in research activities about planning, preparation, placement and evaluation of advertising campaigns. In this chapter, we are going to learn about the basics of advertising research and what techniques and methods are involved in advertising research. This chapter's objective is to provide both theoretical and practical knowledge of advertising research. A case study of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) (Save daughter, educate daughter.) advertising campaign is provided at the end of the chapter to demonstrate how post-test research in advertising is conducted.

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Real Indian gooseberry.

Village Council.

Ching’s secret—Remove Hunger from India. Campaign to raise funds to fight against hunger in India.

Only when the daughter is educated, she will move forward in her life.

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Centre for Media Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Manukonda Rabindranath

Research Assistant, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Ministry of Education, Govt. of India, New Delhi, India

Aradhana Kumari Singh

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Rabindranath, M., Singh, A.K. (2024). Advertising Research. In: Advertising Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8657-6_7

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Advertising Effectiveness

By Peter J. Danaher

The internet has enabled many business developments, but it has turned media allocation and planning on its head. In traditional mass media like television, advertisers can purchase a commercial slot and expect large audiences.

However, many of those reached are not interested in the advertised product or service, so a large percentage of those exposed to advertising do not respond to the message. In digital advertising, websites containing specialized content (e.g., model airplanes) allow advertisers to display their products to loyal and attentive audiences. In the social media space, Facebook delivers ad content to ideal target audiences by examining the web activity of users and their networks. Paid search advertising sends firms customers who are already “in the market” for their products, as indicated by their keyword use.

Over the past 15 years, television channels have grown in number. But the more significant change has been the exponential growth in websites supporting themselves with advertising, not to mention the rapid uptake of paid search advertising.

Advertisers have moved to new digital media outlets not only because of their ability to target customers, but also their lower cost compared to traditional media. Furthermore, digital media allows firms to connect ad exposures and search clicks to downstream sales, a feature Danaher and Dagger (2013) suggest eludes traditional media. Sethuraman, Tellis, and Briesch (2011) show the most convincing way for firms to demonstrate advertising’s effectiveness is by linking the effort to sales. In turn, researchers can use two methods to assess advertising effectiveness: field experiments and econometric models.

Field Experiments

Targeting and retargeting customers who are more likely to respond to offers, an increasingly common practice, makes advertising appear more effective than it is. Lambrecht and Tucker (2013) , in an award-winning Journal of Marketing Research paper, reported a comparison of advertising response between customers exposed to standard banner ads and retargeted banner ads showed the ads displaying products previously viewed were six times more effective at generating sales. However, the consumers receiving retargeted ads had already demonstrated product predilection. The researchers therefore randomly assigned consumers to a treatment group seeing retargeted, product-specific ads and a control seeing generic product category ads. They found the retargeted ads were less effective than the generic ads, as the customers were in different stages of the purchase funnel, and while retargeted ads work well near purchase, they are not effective for the larger group of customers embarking on their search.

The use of field experiments to determine ad effectiveness has subsequently blossomed, with studies using “ghost ads” on Google ( Johnson, Lewis, and Nubbemeyer 2017 ) and Facebook ( Gordon et al 2019) to create randomized control groups. For example, Sahni (2016) used a field experiment to show digital ads for one restaurant increased sales at competing restaurants offering similar cuisine.

In every case, these field experiments have shown that advertising effects are often difficult to detect. For example, the study of Facebook ads by Gordon and colleagues (2019) examined 15 campaigns and found that only eight produced a statistically significant lift in sales.

Econometric Models

The studies by Johnson, Lewis, and Nubbemeyer and Gordon and colleagues also highlight the challenges of designing an experiment to assess digital ad effectiveness. Individual customers use the internet in different ways, and providers deliver digital ads via unique online auction processes. Econometric models therefore provide a versatile approach to gauging advertising effectiveness. And while field experiment studies have been limited to examining one medium at a time, econometric models allow researchers to compare effectiveness across several media.

Researchers can use econometric models to examine time series data, such as weekly or monthly advertising and sales records. Dinner, van Heerde, and Neslin (2014) studied traditional and digital advertising’s effects on in-store and online sales for an upscale clothing retailer across 103 weeks. The retailer made about 85% of its sales in-store, and the researchers examined three media: traditional (i.e., total spend on newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and billboards), online banner advertising, and paid search. They found online display and paid search were more effective than traditional advertising. Although firms might expect digital advertising to influence only online sales, the researchers found it also influenced in-store sales.

Researchers can also use econometric models to examine single-source data linking individual-level ad exposure to sales, the strategy employed by Danaher and Dagger in 2013. They examined 10 media types employed by a large retailer: television, radio, newspaper, magazines, online display ads, paid search, social media, catalogs, direct mail, and email. The researchers found traditional media and paid search effectively generated sales, while online display and social media advertising did not.

Multimedia, Multichannel, and Multibrand Advertising

Danaher and colleagues (2020) also used single-source data but extended it to multiple retailer-brands, two purchase channels, and three media (email, catalogs, and paid search). They collected the data from a North American specialty retailer selling mostly apparel, where 80% of sales were in-store. The parent retailer owned three relatively distinct brands operating independently. They collected customer data in a combined database, giving them information on sales for each retailer-brand over a two-year period.

The researchers found emails and catalogs from one retailer-brand negatively influenced competing retailer-brands in the category. Paid search influenced only the focal retailer-brand. However, competitor catalogs often positively influenced focal retailer-brand sales among omni-channel customers. The researchers also segmented customers by retailer-brand and channel usage, revealing customers shopping across multiple retailer-brands and both purchase channels were the most responsive group to multimedia advertising.

In the contemporary business environment of ever-increasing media channels but static advertising budgets, firms must be able to measure advertising effectiveness. Many businesses have shifted their advertising expenditure toward digital media, but multiple studies show traditional media remain effective.

How do marketing managers decide what is best for their companies? Digital media firms like Google and Facebook offer in-house field experiment methods of examining advertising effectiveness. For multimedia studies, analysts can apply econometric models in any setting where time series or single-source data are available.

Peter Danaher is Professor of Marketing and Econometrics and Department Chair at Monash Business School in Melbourne, Australia. He was recently appointed a co-editor of the Journal of Marketing Research .

Danaher, Peter J. (2021), “Advertising Effectiveness,” Impact at JMR , (January), Available at: https://www.ama.org/2021/01/26/advertising-effectiveness/

Danaher, Peter J., and Tracey S. Dagger (2013), “Comparing the Relative Effectiveness of Advertising Channels: A Case Study of a Multimedia Blitz Campaign,” Journal of Marketing Research , 50(4): 517-534. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.12.0241

Danaher, Peter J., Tracey S. Danaher, Michael S. Smith, and Ruben Laoizo-Maya (2020), “Advertising Effectiveness for Multiple Retailer-Brands in a Multimedia and Multichannel Environment,” Journal of Marketing Research , 57(3): 445-467. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243720910104

Dinner, Isaac, Harald J. van Heerde, and Scott A. Neslin (2014), “Driving Online and Offline Sales: The Cross-channel Effects of Traditional, Online Display, and Paid Search Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 51(5): 527-545. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0466

Gordon, Brett R., Florian Zettelmeyer, Neha Bhargava, and Dan Chapsky (2019), “A Comparison of Approaches to Advertising Measurement: Evidence from Big Field Experiments at Facebook,” Marketing Science , 38(2): 193-225. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1135

Johnson, Garrett A., Randall A. Lewis, and Elmar I. Nubbemeyer (2017), “Ghost Ads: Improving the Economics of Measuring Online Ad Effectiveness,”  Journal of Marketing Research , 54(6): 867-84. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.15.0297

Lambrecht, Anja, and Catherine Tucker (2013), “When Does Retargeting Work? Information Specificity in Online Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 50 (October): 561-576. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0503

Sahni, Navdeep S. (2016), “Advertising Spillovers: Evidence from Online Field Experiments and Implications for Returns on Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 53(4): 459-78. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.14.0274

Sethuraman, Raj, Gerard J Tellis, and Richard A. Briesch (2011), “How Well Does Advertising Work? Generalizations from Meta-Analysis of Brand Advertising Elasticities,” Journal of Marketing Research , 48 (June): 457-471. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.3.457

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• Advertising & Society Review

• Volume 7, Issue 4, 2006
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Additional Information

• The Role of Research in Advertising
• William M. O’Barr (bio)

[ Editor’s Note: This article is a part of ADText .]

What’s in Your Makeup Bag? [ Source ]

Advertising researchers asked women to bring in their personal assemblages of cosmetics. Most women had quite large collections, including lipsticks, perfumes, eye makeup, creams, moisturizers, and shampoos of diverse brands. Not a single woman had an entire collection of a single brand line of cosmetics. Although most women justified the diversity of brands as fitting the requirements of their particular kinds of skin, hair, coloring, and so on, the researchers concluded that such purchasing patterns may also reflect little rebellions against homogenization in the marketplace. 1

FYI… Advertising and marketing are closely related concepts. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, delivering value to customers, and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. In this sense, advertising is a part of the broader issue of marketing.

1. Laying the Groundwork for Producing an Ad—Research Conducted before an Ad is Produced

Clients Supply Their Own Research Findings to Agencies [ Source ]

FYI… The Internet contains many sources on focus groups . Some offer definitions and history , some list current focus groups , and some offer to conduct focus groups for a fee .

The trained moderator may be an advertising agency staff member or may work for a company specializing in consumer research and focus groups. The moderator’s role consists of encouraging members of the group to discuss key issues that have been identified in advance as well as new issues that may emerge in the course of discussion. The moderator may be asked to investigate such issues as:

FYI… The Internet contains many references to beer and drinking culture . A focus group moderator will normally prepare to moderate a focus group by becoming familiar with the brand and the culture surrounding it.

• when and where people drink beer

• how much beer is drunk at any one time

• gender differences in preference for and consumption of beer

• ideas about beer as an alcoholic beverage (as opposed to wine or liquor)

• preferences for bottles, cans, or glasses

• the best temperature for beer

• general aspects of beer culture

The discussion will likely also focus on more specific topics such as:

• preferred brands

A Focus Group Meets in Tokyo [ Source ]

FYI… Demography is the study of human population dynamics. The terms demographics and psychographics are used in discussing consumer characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes.

This Demographic Distribution Shows Residence Patterns of Older Americans [ Source ]

Preference for Organic Foods Is Linked to a Consumer’s Broader Values [ Source ]

Brookstone Demonstrates the High-Tech Segway® Personal Transporter (PT) [ Source ]

FYI… Visit the VALS website and take a short test to determine how you fit into the VALS system of consumer types.

The VALS System Categorizes Consumers in Terms of Values and Life-Styles [ Source ]

Kermit, as “Spokesfrog,” Emphasizes Environmental Benefits of this Ford SUV [ Source ]

Click to view video

Chevy Emphasizes the American Spirit in this TV Spot [ Source ]

Mercedes-Benz Emphasizes Success, Reliability and Status in this Commercial [ Source ]

The Jeep Compass Is Positioned as a Low-Budget, Stylish Car [ Source ]

How Better to Experience the Outdoors? [ Source ]

Makers are Do-It-Yourself People [ Source ]

2. Assisting Production—Research during the Production of Ads

• determining the bottle colors of competing brands in the category (needed by an art director)

• locating images of John Wayne (for use in drawing a cowboy figure)

• conducting a quick ethnographic study to find out what people do while waiting in a coin laundry (for a commercial to be set in a coin laundry)

• determining who owns the rights to the song “Happy Birthday to You” (for a music director who wants to set different words to the tune)

• researching the history of pasta (for a copywriter who wants to emphasize cultural traditions in a print ad)

What Do People Do While Waiting in a Coin Laundry? [ Source ]

Account Planning Often Replaces Research

FYI… Account planning was developed in the United Kingdom during the 1980s and has since been adopted in many other countries, including the United States.

Jon Steel Tells about His Career as an Account Planner [ Source ]

Jon Steel argues that the groundwork for account planning was laid in the creative revolution that took place in advertising in the 1950s and 1960s. He credits Bill Bernbach with having established the climate in which the planner would later emerge as an essential part of the advertising team:

“Find the simple story in the product and present it in an articulate and intelligent persuasive way,” [Bill Bernbach] said, and in doing so, his campaigns succeeded in drawing his audience into the communication, not as passive subjects, but as active and willing participants. To Bernbach, an advertising execution was more than a vehicle to carry a product or brand message; in a way it was the message, and was meant to do more than grab people’s attention. He believed that execution, just as much as the strategic idea, helped establish a brand’s relationship with its users. 4

FYI… Visit the website of Got Milk? where you can view some of the latest ads. You can also read a popular article about the history of the campaign on the Internet.

One of the Original Print Ads for the Got Milk? Campaign [ Source ]

As the research went on, focus group discussions showed that not having milk to drink with certain foods was a source of genuine frustration for many people. In the groups, participants were asked to shut their eyes, listen to scripts read aloud, and report what they imagined. One such script read:

There’s not a lot that can go wrong in your life that a brownie can’t fix. A bad relationship, the loss of a job, a rainy day or a minor illness are each and all burdens lightened by a chewy brownie fresh from the oven. Store bought or home-made, just the word “brownie” is usually enough to bring a smile to young and old alike. Unless of course you don’t have any milk, in which case a brownie is likely to lodge in your throat and send you stumbling around the room wishing you were someone else instead. Got milk? 6

FYI… Other advertisers have licensed the famous query from the California Board. The Milk Processors Education Program licensed “got milk?” to go with their mustache campaign in 1998.

Serena Williams Asks, “Got Milk?” [ Source ]

3. Assessment—Research after Ads Are Made

Meow Mix: Tastes So Good, Cats Ask for It by Name [ Source ]

“Which Shampoo Shall I Buy?” [ Source ]

FYI … Leo Burnett, founder of the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency, defined advertising as “selling Cheerios to people who are eating Corn Flakes”

A Researcher Surveys Consumer Opinions [ Source ]

FYI… Many testing services offer ways to study recall. The Burke Institute is one of the best known.

In order to get a sense of how research tests the memorability and persuasiveness of commercials, take a few moments and answer the following questions without looking back. Their form and content is typical of the kinds of questions consumers are asked in post-exposure testing.

1. Did you watch any of the commercials above?

2. What were the commercials for?

3. Did you happen to see a commercial for a Ford SUV? If so, tell me what you remember about it .

4. Kermit the Frog says, “I guess it is easy being green” in a commercial for which vehicle?

5. What does “I guess it is easy being green” mean?

6. Did you watch any other commercials in this chapter?

7. If so, what was being advertised?

8. Did you see a commercial in which the car turns into an animal?

9. If so, which brand of car was being advertised?

10. What does it mean in the commercial when you see the car turning into an animal?

11. Did you see a commercial with bobblehead dolls in it? Tell me about it .

12. Which brand of car was being advertised in the commercial?

13. Which brand of car advertised itself as “Unlike any other”?

14. Did you see a commercial involving car racing? Tell me about it .

15. Which brand of car was being advertised in the commercial about car racing?

16. Did you see a commercial in which these words were spoken: “This is our country. This is our truck”?

17. Which brand of truck was being advertised?

PDF Downloads: Para instruciones en Español, toque ahi 对于西班牙，触摸指示操作 Spanish Audio Translations Chinese Audio Translations

William M. O’Barr is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University where he has taught since 1969. He holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Sociology and English. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern, Dalhousie, and Oxford Universities. He has been recognized for his outstanding undergraduate teaching by both the Duke University Alumni Association and Trinity College (Duke University). His course, Advertising and Society: Global Perspectives , is one of Duke’s most popular undergraduate courses. His many seminar courses include Advertising and Masculinity, Children and Advertising , and The Language of Advertising .

He is author or co-author of ten books, including Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising, Rules versus Relationships , and Just Words: Law, Language and Power . He has conducted anthropological research in East Africa, Japan, and the United States. In addition to his interest in social and cultural aspects of advertising, Professor O’Barr has researched law in a variety of cultural settings.

In 2000, he founded Advertising & Society Review and served as editor from 2000 to 2005. He is author of Advertising and Society — An Online Curriculum which will consist of 20 units published as supplements to A&SR .

1. Eugene Pomerance of Foote, Cone, and Belding, Chicago, personal communication to author.

2. The first VALS system was based on psychological orientations and social values. VALS was an acronym for Values and Lifestyles. The current VALS system is based only on psychological traits. See http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/about.shtml .

3. Understanding U.S. Consumers , (Menlo Park, California: SRI Consulting Business Intelligence, 2003) 11.

4. Jon Steel, Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998), 33.

5. The California Fluid Milk Processors’ Advisory Board, or the CFMPAB.

6. Steel, 243–4.

Media Credits

Fig. 1. Courtesy of Nikita Kashner, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitta/139786236/ .

Fig. 2. From the author’s collection.

Fig. 3. Courtesy Virtual Reality & Human Interface Technology Lab, Tsinghua University.

Fig. 4. From Administration on Aging, Alzheimer’s Demonstration Program

Fig. 5. Courtesy of Somerfield, PLC.

Fig. 6. Segway is a registered trademark of Segway Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Fig. 7. SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI); www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ .

Fig. 8. Ford Motor Company/JWT.

Fig. 9. Chevrolet/Campbell Ewald, Interpublic Group.

Fig. 10. Mercedes-Benz/Merkley + Partners.

Fig. 11. DaimlerChrysler/Global Hue.

Fig. 12. Nissan/TBWA/G1 Europe.

Fig. 13. Money , September 2006.

Fig. 14. Courtesy http://www.coin-laundry.co.jp .

Fig. 15. Jon Steel, Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998).

Fig. 16. Courtesy California Milk Processor Board.

Fig. 17. © The National Milk Processor Promotion Board. Used With Permission. All rights reserved.

Fig. 18. © 2004 The Meow Mix Company. Meow Mix is a federally registered trademark of The Meow Mix Company.

Fig. 19. Photo by Emma Hymas.

Fig. 20. From www.edhat.com .

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Market Research Guide for Advertising

Although a major subsector of marketing, advertising is often treated as a secondary task, one with a scarce backup of data to deliver outstanding ad campaign results. To add insult to injury, a sweeping 76% of marketers in 2020 did not rely on behavioral data for ad targeting.

This is dismal news, given the fact that despite being barraged with 1,700 ads per month, users only view half of them. It occurs in the face of a costly worldwide ad expenditure, which is forecasted to reach $375 billion by 2021.

Market research is therefore undoubtedly necessary. A wide-spanning umbrella term, it refers to collecting and analyzing data about your target market and your competitors, along with the traits, trends and changes in the overall market you serve.

Consequently, it is evident that advertising requires its own market research. This guide will teach you how to carry out market research for advertising.

Advertising Market Research at a Glance

Advertising market research is a form of research concentrated on advertising campaigns. As such, its ultimate aim is to identify the most effective ads within a company’s target market.

The process of market research for advertising includes pre-campaign efforts as well as post-campaign scrutiny . This includes setting up advertising campaigns, narrowing in on your target market, deducing which ads are best and measuring the success of your ad campaigns.

You’ll find that market research plays a critical role in each stage of this advertising development process. Let’s get a more thorough rundown to learn how to set up an effective advertising campaign through market research tailored specifically towards it.

Pre-Campaign Market Research: Setting Up Your Ad Campaign

We caution you to never jump headfirst into an advertising campaign. Before running a campaign, you must set it up through planning. Pre-campaign efforts include three stages, all of which are fueled by market research.

Here are the first three stages:

Stage 1: Acquire a deep understanding of your target market.

You cannot lay the groundwork for an ad campaign before you understand who your target market is, along with the different segments it encompasses. By understanding these groups, you’ll be able to create general ads that target the entirety of your target audience, along with ads tailored more towards the different segments within your target market. Here is what you will need to nail down both of these groups:

Set up a survey that covers a wide net of demographics. Ask questions to gauge which demographics show the most interest in your brand.

Determine which demographics show the most favorability towards your brand, offering or messaging. This is your target market.

Arrange psychographic surveys across the demographics most conducive to buying from you. This will give you direct insight into the psyche into specific demographics, revealing the different segments within your target market.

Stage 2: Set Up Micro and Macro Advertising Campaign Objectives

Now that you’ve nailed down your target market and have zeroed in on the different segments within it, you can begin planning your advertising campaign. Each campaign, sub-campaign and ad itself will require an objective.

Otherwise, you won’t know how to measure the performance and success of each component of your campaign(s). Here are the objectives to focus on and how to do so:

Pin down the purpose of a new campaign. Or do so with a number of campaigns. Typically, an advertising campaign seeks to:

to inform your target market about a new offering.

to persuade consumers to convert (either by buying, subscribing, signing up for the new or existing offering).

to remind your target market where and how to access the offering.

Find the proper media channels to deliver your advertisements. Think about the purpose of your campaign; can a particular channel deliver it best, or perhaps, can it do so partially?

Collect secondary research on your target market. This will help you discover which advertising channels work well across general target markets.

Collect primary research by creating surveys that unveil the messaging preferences of each segment of your target market.

Narrow down the advertising channels for your campaign. These include:

Display ads (landing pages, pop-ups, banners)

Social media ads

PLA ads (via Google Adwords or Criteo)

Stage 3: Set Up a Budget for Your Advertising Campaign

The shortest stage within the advertising research and development process — although not trivial in the slightest — setting up a budget is necessary before you do any conceptualizing.

Market Research During the Campaign

Following the first three pre-campaign, pre-planning stages, we move along to the campaign itself. Now that you’ve done the market research on your target audience, set campaign and sub-campaign objectives and set a budget, you can start conceptualizing the operation itself.

Here is how to proceed:

Stage 4: Create the Central Messaging Behind Your Campaign

Decide on a concept; it can be a theme or a central narrative to all your ads.

Make sure your idea is precisely targeted to your target market, along with the segments of your target market.

Next, create the ads themselves. An ad should possess the following qualities:

Relevance to the target audience

Value in purchasing and using

Uniqueness to set yourself apart from competitors

Credibility — your customers should believe your ad, don’t make it seem too good to be true.

Get into the nitty grid of your sub-campaigns and ads themselves

Decide which channels you chose previously work best for which ad type

Decide what to incorporate into each medium (ex: do you need a video in each medium or only copy, etc.)

Based on the surveys you’ve run, decide which ads to expose to particular segments of your target market. You can add more surveys for research purposes.

Set a frequency, ie, how many times your audience will receive your ads

Launch your advertising campaign

Post-Campaign Efforts

Market research doesn’t end after you launch your advertising campaign. Its performance gives you another great opportunity to study your target market, along with your ensuing marketing efforts.

It will also inform your new campaigns and new ads as part of your current, ongoing one. This brings us to the final stage.

Stage 5: Keep Track of Your Advertising Performance

Tracking the effectiveness of an advertising campaign will differ based on the KPIs you set. These will depend largely on the medium you use to distribute your ads.

Attribute several KPIs to monitor during your campaign. Here are some to consider:

Conversions

Return on Ad Spent (ROAS)

Cost Per 1,000 Impressions

Impressions

Cost per click (CPC)

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Observe these KPIs daily on a web analytics platform like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. Or, set up your campaign and track it on a specialized platform like Adroll .

Create surveys that target the same segments from your campaign. These can help you see how your customer base reacts to them.

Test them on images (preferences on 1 over the other).

Ask them questions to expand and refine the current campaign.

Come up with questions for new campaign ideation.

Closing off on Market Research for Ads

After Stage 5, you should have established a familiarity with your target market and your industry — at least to some extent. With all this data in tow, you can go about new ad campaigns armed with this new customer knowledge. More importantly, the market research you’ve picked up during this process will help inform all of your marketing efforts.

After all, the purpose of this research is to equip your brand with a deep understanding of your customers to make smarter business decisions. After gathering enough market research, you may try going bold in your next advertising venture.

Frequently asked questions

What is advertising market research.

Advertising market research focuses on advertising campaigns, with the purpose of improving campaign strategy by identifying the most effective campaigns.

What is the process for conducting advertising market research?

The process for advertising market research involves pre-campaign planning, continues with research while campaigns are running, and ends with post-campaign analysis.

What is pre-campaign market research?

Pre-campaign market research encompasses all the planning activities that happen before an advertising campaign is deployed. This includes gaining a deeper understanding of the target audience, establishing campaign objectives, and establishing a budget for the campaign.

What are KPIs?

KPI stands for “Key Performance Indicator.” KPIs are used to evaluate the success of a business or specific activities within that business, such as advertising campaigns.

How can advertising market research improve future campaigns?

By looking at the KPIs of campaigns, a company can determine which campaigns were most effective and repeat this type of campaign, or reuse aspects of the campaign in future advertising efforts.

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Advertising Research: Definition & How to do it?

January 23, 2024 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

Table of Contents

What is Advertising Research?

Advertising Research is a specialized form of marketing research conducted to improve the efficacy of advertising. It involves a systematic process of collecting and analyzing data to help develop or evaluate advertising campaigns . 

The goal of research for an advertising campaign is to understand how ad campaigns resonate with the target audience and inform future decisions in the advertising realm. It offers insights into customer preferences and behaviors.

Key Takeaways!

• Advertising research involves gathering and analyzing data to enhance the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
• The data gathered helps in tailoring ads to resonate with a specific target audience.
• Ultimately, it drives strategic decision-making in the advertising realm.

Why use Advertising Research?

Advertising research is a powerful tool that serves multiple purposes. It not only measures the effectiveness of a marketing campaign but also lays the foundation for future advertising strategies .

Some of the reasons behind using advertising research are:

• Advertising research assists in identifying the most effective advertising channels.
• It aids in understanding the perceptions and attitudes of consumers towards a brand ’s advertising.
• Through it, businesses can track changes in consumer behavior and preferences over time.
• It helps in predicting trends and patterns, facilitating proactive adjustments in advertising strategies.

Objectives of Doing Research for an Ad Campaign

1) Increasing Brand Awareness

• The primary objective of advertising research is to enhance awareness
• Increase visibility and recognition of brand or product among target audience
• Use advertising research to understand what aspects of advertising are working to raise awareness
• Fine-tune campaigns based on research findings for maximum effectiveness

2) Knowing Attitudinal Pattern

• Understanding the attitudinal pattern of consumers is a major objective of advertising research.
• This objective focuses on understanding consumers’ feelings, preferences, and dislikes towards a brand or product.
• Knowing the attitudes and perceptions of the target audience can guide the development of persuasive advertising messages .
• These messages resonate with their values and beliefs, leading to increased brand affinity and customer loyalty .

3) Knowing People’s Action/Reaction

• Advertising research aims to understand consumer actions and reactions to brand advertising efforts.
• It involves analyzing consumer behavior in response to advertisements, including purchasing decisions, brand interactions, and feedback.
• Insights from advertising research can help businesses tailor their advertising strategies.
• The goal is to elicit desired responses from consumers and achieve marketing and sales goals .

Market Research Essentials for an Ad Campaign

• Research Equipment: The right research tools are vital for collecting accurate and reliable data. Tools can range from qualitative research methods like focus groups and interviews to digital analytics tools that track ad performance.
• Media Research: Media research is a key aspect of advertising research. It involves analyzing media channels to determine which would be most effective for reaching the target audience. This includes looking at factors like audience demographics, media consumption habits, and cost-per-impression.
• Marketing Trends: Staying updated with the latest marketing trends is crucial for creating a successful advertising campaign. Businesses should keep an eye on emerging technologies, shifts in consumer behavior, and changes in the competitive landscape.
• Target Audience: Understanding the target audience is a fundamental part of advertising research. It involves analyzing demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data to understand the audience’s needs, wants, and preferences. Insights about the target audience can inform campaign ideas , marketing messages, and the overall marketing strategy .
• Campaign Launch: The launch of an advertising campaign is a critical phase that requires thorough planning and coordination. It involves deciding on the timing, selecting the right media channels, and ensuring that the marketing messages are consistent across all platforms. The success of a campaign launch can often be predicted through targeted advertising research.

How To Do Pre-Campaign Advertising Research

Now that we have established the importance of advertising research and its various components, let’s dive into how businesses can conduct pre-campaign research to ensure a successful ad campaign.

Some of the ways you can do your pre-campaign research are:

• Surveys: Surveys can provide valuable insight into a target customer’s thoughts and feelings about a product, service, or brand. By asking direct questions, businesses can gauge consumer interest, satisfaction levels, and potential areas for improvement.
• Google Analytics: This tool allows businesses to assess the behavior of visitors to their website – where they come from, how long they stay, which pages they visit, and so on. This data is invaluable in understanding the effectiveness of online advertising strategies.
• Keyword Research: By understanding the terms and phrases that customers use when searching for products or services, businesses can optimize their content for search engines, helping to attract more visitors to their websites.
• Customer Reviews : Reviews left by customers on sites like Amazon , Yelp , and Google can give businesses a direct line to their audience’s thoughts, allowing them to monitor sentiment and respond to feedback.
• Q&A Sites: Websites like Quora and Stack Overflow can provide insight into the questions and problems that customers are facing, potentially highlighting gaps in the market that a company ’s products or services could fill.
• Competitor Analysis : By studying competitors’ advertising strategies, businesses can understand what works and what doesn’t, helping them to avoid mistakes and capitalize on successful tactics.
• Blog Comments: Comments left on a company’s blog can reveal how customers feel about particular topics or products, providing businesses with a direct line of communication with their audience.
• Google Trends and Consumer Barometer: These tools can help businesses keep track of changing consumer preferences and stay ahead of industry trends.
• Syndicated Data: Syndicated data from external providers can provide businesses with a broader view of market trends, competitive activities, and consumer behaviors.
• Twitter Insiders: This tool allows businesses to tap into the thoughts and feelings of Twitter users, providing real-time insights into consumer sentiment.
• Social Media: Platforms like Facebook , Instagram , and LinkedIn can provide businesses with a wealth of data on consumer behavior, preferences, and sentiment.
• Social Intelligence: This involves using technology to listen to and analyze conversations across social media and the web, providing businesses with insights into how they are perceived and where they stand in the market.

How To Do Post-Campaign Advertising Research

Once a company has launched an advertising campaign, it’s important to evaluate its impact and effectiveness. This is where post-campaign advertising research comes in – a critical step in understanding the campaign’s impact and identifying areas for improvement in future campaigns.

But how exactly does one go about conducting post-campaign advertising research? Here are some ways you can do it are:

• Volume of Mentions: This refers to the number of times the campaign or brand is discussed or mentioned across various platforms. A high volume of mentions often indicates increased awareness and visibility.
• Share of Voice : This measures the proportion of conversation your campaign has generated in comparison to your competitors. A higher share of voice typically signifies that your brand or campaign is dominating the conversation in your industry.
• Reach: Reach refers to the total number of unique individuals exposed to your campaign. It’s an essential metric to understand your campaign’s breadth and potential impact.
• News Coverage: News coverage reflects how much attention your campaign has attracted from news outlets and media platforms. Positive news coverage can significantly enhance your campaign’s credibility and reach.
• Purchase Intent : This metric gauges the likelihood of consumers purchasing your product or service after seeing your campaign. It’s a direct indicator of your campaign’s effectiveness in driving sales.
• Sentiment and Emotional Response: This involves analyzing the positive, negative, or neutral sentiment expressed in responses to your campaign, as well as the emotional reactions it triggers. This insight helps to assess the emotional resonance of your campaign.
• Brand Associations : These are the attributes and qualities consumers associate with your brand as a result of your campaign. Brand tracker tools can help identify these associations, providing valuable feedback on your campaign’s impact on your brand image .

How Ad Research Works

Ad research is an incredibly dynamic field, with two primary approaches being in-house research and third-party research. Both these strategies are effective in their own ways, offering unique advantages to advertisers who employ them:

• In-house research: This type of research is conducted internally by the advertising team . It allows for full control over the research process , ensuring that the focus remains closely aligned with the company’s specific objectives. However, it requires skilled personnel and resources to execute effectively.
• Third-party research: This involves outsourcing research to an external agency. While this may involve a higher cost, it offers the benefit of an objective perspective. These agencies bring their expertise to the table, often providing deeper insights and a more comprehensive understanding of the market and competition .

Pros and Cons of Advertising Research

• Informed Decision Making : Data-driven strategies enhance campaign success.
• Understanding Customer Behavior: Gain insights into target customers’ preferences and behaviors for effective targeting.
• Measure Campaign Impact: Assess campaign effectiveness to inform future strategies.
• Identify Potential Customers : Identify potential markets or customer segments for business expansion.
• Increase Sales : Ad research increases sales effectively.
• Time-Consuming: In-depth research can delay campaign launches.
• Can be Costly: Especially when using third-party agencies.
• Requires Expertise: Effective research and data analysis demands specialized skills .
• Data Overload: Excessive data can lead to analysis paralysis, slowing decision-making.
• Must be Repeated: Market conditions and customer preferences change quickly, necessitating regular research repetition.

Conclusion!

Ad research is a crucial cog in the mechanism of a successful marketing campaign. While it may present challenges in terms of cost and time, the insights garnered are invaluable in crafting effective, targeted strategies that boost sales and brand recognition .

1) How can market research improve advertising?

Market research improves advertising by uncovering customer behaviors and preferences, enabling precise targeting. It also measures campaign impact, helping refine future strategies.

2) What are the types of advertising research?

There are two main types of ad research: pre-testing, which assesses the effectiveness of ads before they are launched in the target market , and post-testing, which evaluates their impact after they have been in the market.

3) What are the three stages of advertising research?

Advertising can be divided into three key stages:

• Awareness, which focuses on building an audience and increasing visibility.
• Consideration, where the goal is to generate leads and establish authority in the field.
• Conversion, which involves nurturing leads and ultimately driving sales.

4) What is an example of advertising research?

While creating a blog, I utilized advertising research to identify my target audience’s interests and common search phrases. This data guided my content creation, ensuring it was relevant and engaging. Post-launch, I leveraged feedback and engagement metrics to refine my content strategy and optimize visibility.

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Advertising

Related posts:

• What is Research Design? Type of Research Designs
• How to Write Research Proposal? Research Proposal Format
• 7 Key Differences between Research Method and Research Methodology
• Qualitative Research: Meaning, and Features of Qualitative Research
• Research Ethics – Importance and Principles of Ethics in Research
• What is Corporate Advertising? Examples of Corporate Advertising
• 11 Objectives of Advertising – What are Advertising Objectives?
• What is Advertising? Advertising Methods and Advantages
• Nike Advertising | Techniques used by Nike in Advertising
• Informative Advertising Vs Persuasive Advertising

About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

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Advertising - Research Methods

The pages within this guide contain a cross section of book titles, articles, dissertations, databases and additional SU Libraries guides to consider when exploring research methodologies in advertising SUMMON search tip:  Use  Summon's advanced search screen , to uncover additional sources like those highlighted below. Enter "advertising" as a "subject terms" search word - and combine that search query with an AND and an additional "subject term" search word or phrase, such as:

• Methodology
• "Research Design"
• "Research Methods"
• "Statistical Methods"
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Articles and Dissertations

A brief sampling of scholarly articles and doctoral dissertations covering research methodologies in advertising. Use the Scopus database to retrieve references for subsequently published articles or book chapters that cite these references. If a reference below resides in Scopus, click on "SULinks" or "view at publisher" to arrive at full text for that source. If neither brings up the full source, manually verify whether SU has access to the journal title containing the article using the journals A to Z list , or if a book chapter, an advanced 'title' search for the title of the book using Summon .

• Applequist, J. (2015).  A mixed-methods approach toward primetime television direct-to-consumer advertising: Pharmaceutical fetishism and critical analyses of the commercial discourse of health care   (Order No. 3715473). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1710718805).
• Feng, Y. & Xie, Q. (2018).   Measuring the content characteristics of videos featuring augmented reality advertising campaigns   Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing , 12 (4), 489-508.
• Hinson, R., Boateng, H., Renner, A., & Kosiba, J.P.B. (2019).   Antecedents and consequences of customer engagement on Facebook: An attachment theory perspective.   Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing , 13 (2), 204-226.
• Kaur, N. (2015).  A Combinatorial Tweet Clustering Methodology Utilizing Inter and Intra Cosine Similarity   (Order No. 28140999). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2481591292). 
• King, W. I. (1932). Statistical Methods in Advertising Research .  Journal of the American Statistical Association ,  27 (179), 319–321.
• Lajante, M. M. P., Droulers, O., & Amarantini, D. (2017). How reliable are “state-of-the-art” facial EMG processing methods?: Guidelines for improving the assessment of emotional valence in advertising research .  Journal of Advertising Research,  57 (1), 28-37.
• Madsen, M. J. (2018).   A Q-Method Study of Visual Metaphors in Advertising   (Order No. 28107597). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: Business. (2442256301).
• Malhotra, N. K., Schaller, T. K., & Patil, A. (2017) . Common method variance in advertising research: When to be concerned and how to control for it .  Journal of Advertising,  46 (1), 193-212.
• McNamara, J. J. (1941).  A New Method for Testing Advertising Effectiveness Through Eye-Movement Photography   (Order No. 27696763). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2311959685).
• Sarstedt, M., Bengart, P., Shaltoni, A. M., & Lehmann, S. (2018). The use of sampling methods in advertising research: A gap between theory and practice .  International Journal of Advertising,  37 (4), 650-663.
• Smith, J. A. (2008) .  Towards a more efficient method of data integration: An evaluation of the Data -Overlay approach to media planning   (Order No. 3324220). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304456723).
• Starch, D. (1923) . Research Methods in Advertising .   The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ,  110 (1), 139–143.

Here are links to additional SU Libraries research guides potentially useful to researchers in advertising

• Advertising Resources
• Business Information Guide
• Numeric Data Resources
• GIS (Geographic Information Systems), Geospatial Data
• Video Guide

A sampling of licensed Syracuse University Libraries databases often helpful for researchers in advertising

See also:  Databases A-Z:  Advertising and   Databases A-Z: Business & Entrepreneurship

• SAGE Research Methods Online Information about research methods and design; includes Sage Datasets and Sage Cases, and the qualitative and quantitative methods series, "Little Green Books" and “Little Blue Books.”
• SAGE Research Methods Cases Teaching cases in which a variety of research methods are used in a number of social sciences subject areas. Cases are incorporated into SAGE Research Methods Online.
• ABI/INFORM Collection Index and abstracts to publications in business, management, and news, as well as reports and working papers; includes some full text.
• Adforum Audiovisual library of U.S. and international advertising sourced from numerous ad agencies, including award winning ads  (Cannes Lion, Clio, Effie, One Show, etc.)
• Advertising Age Login required. Content from Advertising Age, including articles, videos, and podcasts.
• Business Source Elite Business and economics journals and magazine articles, many with full text, including content from the Harvard Business Review.
• Communication Source Abstracts of publications covering advertising, discourse, linguistics, media studies, speech-language pathology, and other communication fields.
• WARC Case studies of advertising, marketing communications and branding. Includes video of advertising campaigns.
• MRI Simmons See the SU Libraries Advertising Research Guide for further user guidance on the use of Simmons Insights (including its ecommerce related surveys called "Simmons Connect" and its brand and product category data visualizations called "Brand Catalyst."). ||| 50 simultaneous users. Consumer survey data for U.S. individuals and households, yielding cross-tabulated brand and product category preferences, demographic and psychographic data, and trends for use of digital and traditional media. Includes access to Brand Catalyst, a visualization platform for creating consumer personas that compare and predict these preferences.
• Mintel Reports Research reports covering consumer behavior and analysis of United States markets.
• Business Insights: Essentials Articles about business, company histories and profiles, financial and industry reports, SWOT analyses, and more.
• Insider Intelligence eMarketer Marketing, advertising, and consumer reports covering a range of industries, such as financial services, ecommerce, technology, and more. Includes content from both eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence.
• IBISWorld Industry and company reports, industry outlook and risk rating reports, market share, and business environment profiles, and more, searchable by keyword or NAICS code.
• Mergent Intellect Information about U.S. and international public and private companies, company news, and key business ratios. Searchable by company, person, or industry. Includes content in D & B Million Dollar Database and offers FirstResearch industry profiles, Indeed job search, Nielsen demographics, and a residential directory.
• SRDS Media Solutions Directories for television and radio broadcasting, digital media, print newspapers and magazines, place-based and outdoor media. Also includes local market audience, programmatic media planning, and digital network information.
• Statista Data from both public and private sources related to a wide range of subjects, including consumers, digital markets, and companies; also includes forecasts, analysis, reports, and more.
• SimplyAnalytics Four simultaneous users. Users must also create their own personal profile. Application for mapping, analytics, and data visualization of variables such as demographics, employment, housing, market segments, businesses, consumer spending, brand preferences, technology, and public health. Includes data from Nielsen Claritas, Dun and Bradstreet, Simmons, GFK MRI, Easy Analytic Software (EASI), and Applied Geographic Solutions.
• ProQuest News and Newspapers Search portal for multiple news and newspaper databases including Alt-PressWatch, Canadian Newsstream, Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, Global Breaking Newswires, International Newsstream, US Newsstream, and ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Text visualization options for selected newspapers are available on the TDM Studio platform; please see the ProQuest TDM Studio guide for access information.

News, business, and legal sources covering world news and companies, and including U.S. Supreme Court decisions, state, federal and international law, regulations, and law reviews.

• Access World News Current and past worldwide news sources, including international, local and regional newspapers, media transcripts, wire service content, college newspaper articles, magazines, blogs, video and audio.

Adweek (USA)

05/02/2019 to Present in  Newsbank Access World News Research Collection 2022 Edition

02/03/2003 to Present in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry

01/05/2004 to Present in  Business Source Elite

02/03/2003 to Present in  Research Library

1973 to 1975 in  Print Holdings

2003 to Present in  Print Holdings

02/03/2003 to Present in  ProQuest Central

Journal of advertising

01/01/1972 to 01/31/1985 in  ABI/INFORM Collection

01/01/1991 to 12/31/2013 in  ABI/INFORM Collection

01/01/1972 to 01/31/1985 in  ABI/INFORM Global

01/01/1991 to 12/31/2013 in  ABI/INFORM Global

03/01/1985 to Present in  Business Source Elite

03/01/1972 to Present in  Communication Source

01/01/1972 to 8 years ago in  JSTOR Arts & Sciences VI

01/01/1991 to 12/31/2013 in  Research Library

03/01/1997 to Present in  Taylor & Francis Social Science and Humanities Library

01/01/1972 to 01/31/1985 in  ProQuest Central

01/01/1991 to 12/31/2013 in  ProQuest Central

Journal of advertising research

01/01/1996 to 12/31/2005 in  Cambridge Journals

01/01/2000 to Present in  Publisher site

1960 to Present in  Print Holdings

International journal of advertising 

05/01/2000 to 18 months ago in  Communication Source

1983 to Present in  Print Holdings

01/01/1997 to Present in  Taylor & Francis Social Science and Humanities Library

Journal of advertising education

04/01/2012 to 11/30/2018 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global

05/01/1999 to Present in  SAGE Journals PREMJI23 2023

04/01/2012 to 11/30/2018 in  ProQuest Central

Journal of consumer marketing

10/01/1987 to 1 year ago in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global

1984 to 1993 in  Emerald eJournals Backfiles

1994 to Present in  Emerald Management 120

10/01/1987 to 1 year ago in  Research Library

Print Holdings

10/01/1987 to 1 year ago in  ProQuest Central

1994 to Present in  Emerald ejournals Premier

Adweek (Eastern ed.)

10/13/1997 to 02/10/2003 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry

07/01/1996 to 12/22/2003 in  Business Source Elite

10/13/1997 to 02/10/2003 in  Research Library

1989 to 2014 in  Microform Holdings

1985 to 1989 in  Print Holdings

01/01/1970 to Present in  Nexis Uni

10/13/1997 to 02/10/2003 in  ProQuest Central

Adweek (Midwest ed.)

10/06/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry

07/12/1999 to 01/27/2003 in  Business Source Elite

10/06/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  Research Library ,  ProQuest Central

Adweek (New England ed.)

07/05/1999 to 01/27/2003 in  Business Source Elite

Adweek (Southeast edition)

10/20/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry

10/20/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  Research Library ,  ProQuest Central

Adweek (Southwest ed.)

10/06/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry ,  Research Library ,  ProQuest Central

Adweek (Western ed.)

10/13/1997 to 01/27/2003 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry ,  Research Library ,  ProQuest Central

50 simultaneous users. Consumer survey data for U.S. individuals and households, yielding cross-tabulated brand and product category preferences, demographic and psychographic data, and trends for use of digital and traditional media. Includes access to Brand Catalyst, a visualization platform for creating consumer personas that compare and predict these preferences.

01/02/1989 to 01/30/2008 in  Business Insights: Essentials

10/13/1997 to 02/10/2003 in  Research Library ,  Microform Holdings ,  Print Holdings

03/24/1997 to 01/10/2008 in  Business Insights: Essentials

03/17/1997 to 01/31/2008 in  Business Insights: Essentials

06/09/1997 to 01/12/2008 in  Business Insights: Essentials

03/24/1997 to 01/22/2008 in  Business Insights: Essentials

Adweek (2003) 

02/03/2003 to Present in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry ,  Business Insights: Essentials

04/11/2003 to 01/17/2011 in  Business Insights: Essentials

02/03/2003 to Present in  Research Library ,  Print Holdings

2003 to Present in,  Print Holdings

02/03/2003 to Present in,  ProQuest Central

05/02/2019 to Present in  Newsbank Access World News Research Collection 2021 Edition

Adweek Magazine's technology marketing  

05/01/2001 to 11/30/2003 in  Business Insights: Essentials

05/01/2001 to 12/31/2004 in  Business Source Elite

05/01/2001 to 11/30/2003 in  Gale OneFile: Computer Science

05/01/2001 to 09/30/2003 in  Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women's Issues

Adweek. Western advertising news 

01/03/1994 to 01/27/2003 in  Business Source Elite

01/01/1991 to 01/27/2003 in  Factiva

Adweek/art directors' index, USA   Print Holdings

Adweek's marketing week 

01/06/1992 to 06/30/1992 in  ABI/INFORM Collection ,  ABI/INFORM Global ,  ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry

01/02/1989 to 06/29/1992 in  Business Insights: Essentials

01/06/1992 to 06/30/1992 in  Research Library ,  ProQuest Central

01/01/1989 to 07/31/2014 in  Business Insights: Essentials

01/01/1972 to 10/31/2013 in  JSTOR Arts & Sciences VI

01/01/1993 to 06/30/2006 in  Business Insights: Essentials

The Journal of consumer marketing  (Alternate Title: Journal of consumer marketing)

01/01/1995 to 01/31/1998 in  Business Insights: Essentials

10/01/1987 to 1 year ago in  Research Library ,  Print Holdings

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• Last Updated: Dec 19, 2023 9:04 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/adv-pr
• Print This Page

What Is Market Research For Advertising?

2022-06-29 Market Research

Market research can help advertisers gather strategic insights for an advertising campaign. Advertisers use market research to learn more about a target market, as well as valuable competitive insights.

This kind of marketing strategy requires collecting a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to get a clear picture of the target market. To gather qualitative data, marketing specialists use focus groups and interviews with members of their target audience to get feedback on their marketing campaign.  Surveys and other quantitative data  can provide additional crucial information about a market that advertisers apply to their qualitative research.

This guide will show you how and why to conduct market research and apply these insights to your ad campaigns.

How to Conduct Market Research for an Ad Campaign

Advertising market research has five main steps, from planning to evaluating the advertising campaign. Each step helps marketing teams maximize marketing efforts.

1. Gather Information to Build Your Advertising Strategy

This first stage helps marketing teams explore their options to create content. It is crucial for providing analysis that marketers can refer back to later if they need to change the direction of their campaign, so they will have other options ready for them to use.

Here are six ways you can use market research to help enhance your advertising strategy:

Understand your product : Know what you are selling, what it does, and what sets it apart from other goods and services. This will help you later so you can best decide how to market that product.

Identify your value to customers : Outline the value your product brings to your target audience. Highlight your target market’s motivation for choosing to buy (or not buy) your product, what drives decision-making, and how they interact with your product(s).

Know your brand positioning : You should have defined brand positioning prior to launching advertising campaigns. If your brand is not clearly defined, this should be a top priority.

Study your competition : All companies thoroughly analyze their competition’s actions and strategies to determine how to beat them. Look at your competition’s advertising efforts to determine what you should do as well.

Outline cultural and social factors : Study the various aspects of your market’s cultural and social environment. Different cultures have different priorities and standards, so determine how best to account for those factors.

Set a goal : You should know what the desired outcome of your advertising campaign is. Your goal might be more sales, increased brand awareness, or more website visits.

2.  Use Market Research Data to Brainstorm Ad Campaign Ideas

After using market research to inform your advertising strategy, you can start applying those insights as you brainstorm campaign ideas. When creating concepts, everything should return to serving the campaign and its desired outcome.

Be sure to understand and identify all of the audience segments you’ll be targeting; this will help ensure that your ad creative, messaging, and placement will reach the right people.

3.  Test Your Ad Creative and Messaging

This stage is where marketing teams test their strategies with a real audience. Marketers can test their ad to gauge an audience’s response while the ad is still at the draft stage (before the campaign is launched) – so, there is still time to edit and revise.

The goal of testing an ad before it launches is to ensure that your ad creative, messaging, and overall tone align with the desired outcome of the campaign. By testing at the drafting stage, marketers have the room to return to the idea board and try again without wasting media spend on an ad that needs to be reworked.

Marketers can also  measure the effectiveness of their ads  after launching the campaign. In addition to measuring an audience’s response to ad creative and messaging, you can also determine which ad placements are working best for your campaign. This is also a good way to see how well the audience can recall your brand from the ad.

4.  A/B Test to Identify the Best-performing Ad

A/B testing is where a marketing team will test two different versions of an almost-identical ad. For example, a car company might be trying to evaluate which color car they should use in their campaign to have the maximum impact, so they run A/B testing of the same ad where the car is red in one ad and blue in another — other than the color, all further details in the advertisement need to be exactly the same.

When testing, marketers will show each ad to different members of their audience. Each member views one version of the ad, and they must not be aware that there is another version. This way, marketers test the effectiveness of that advertisement, rather than the comparative effectiveness, and compare their data later.

5.  Evaluate the Success of Your Ad Campaign

This is the final stage of advertising market research, which takes place after a campaign ends. At this stage, marketing teams reflect on their efforts and see what strategies and processes worked to help them reach their goals. They can also evaluate how those efforts affected brand lift and brand affinity by surveying audiences who were exposed to your campaign.

At this step, you can also use measurement solutions to survey these audiences to determine ad recall and other key metrics. For example, consumers considered buying from Purple, a mattress company,  34% more often  after seeing the brand’s YouTube campaign.

Benefits of Market Research For Advertising

Market research helps brands improve their advertising strategies in many different ways. As established in initial planning and insights, market research advertising helps you better  understand your business’s audience . This research might even apply to other areas of your business outside of that campaign.

Market research can also help you understand where you should be advertising in order to reach your target audience and meet your goals. For example, research showed that  people are twice as likely  to purchase an item they saw on YouTube than on other sites. If your company wants to expand its brand,  mobile ads can cause a 46% increase  in brand awareness. Conducting research like this that is specific to your brand and audience can help your company target the right users and increase the impact of your advertising efforts.

Overall, advertising market research helps brands save money by preventing ineffective ad campaign creative, messaging, and placement. That is why market research is most important during the initial stages of a campaign, so marketers don’t have to rework their brand positioning or relaunch campaigns to accommodate for mistakes. Pepsi’s infamous  Kendall Jenner campaign cost them $2 million , and they ultimately had to pull the ad and apologize for it. Proper research and testing could have prevented this negative brand awareness and waste of money.

Let Cint Help With Your Market Research For Advertising

At Cint, our platform can help equip your business with all the tools that you need to conduct market research for your next campaign. Search our selection of tools and discover the one that fits your business needs.

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What Is Advertising Research?

What You Need to Know About Advertising Research

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Advertising research is done to determine which advertisements will be most effective with your target audience. It's done during ad development and to analyze the effectiveness of an ad campaign while it's underway.

Learn more about advertising research.

Advertising is the part of your marketing plan that uses paid, non-personal messages. These messages are designed to reach large groups of customers and sell your products or services.

Like all forms of marketing, your advertising will be most successful if it's based on high-quality research. This should be a regular part of your market research strategy.

• Alternate names : Market research, marketing research

How Advertising Research Works

Most advertising research is conducted in one of two ways.

• In-house research : Many brands conduct research internally. You can ask clients to fill out email or web surveys or answer questions after making a purchase or track customer service interactions. This can provide information about how they located the product or service that the company is offering and whether an advertisement brought your product to their attention. This type of research can also provide information on customer satisfaction.
• Third-party research : Working with an advertising research firm ensures your information is independent and unbiased. Research firms also have the resources to conduct more extensive research. In addition to surveys, they may gather groups of customers for focus groups, show ads to individuals, ask questions to determine what impact the advertising had, or monitor what participants look up online after being exposed to an ad.

Whether you perform your research in-house or work with a third-party firm will likely depend on your budget, the size of your business, and what information you hope to learn.

Once you have the results of your advertising research, it can be used to help you refine your advertising methods, choose more effective advertising media, and craft marketing messages that will resonate more effectively with your customers. It can also tell you where and how to spend your advertising budget to get the best return on your investment.

Your advertising plan is a blueprint that outlines:

• Who your customers are
• The advertising media you will use to reach them
• Any budget and time constraints
• Your marketing message
• Benchmarks for success

Types of Advertising Research

Advertising research should be designed to tell you how effective your advertising plan is at reaching and persuading customers.

This research is beneficial no matter what form of advertising you use, including print, television, radio, and digital. Advertising research can focus on different areas of the advertising process, including:

Target Market

You may need to research the habits and preferences of your target customers before launching an advertising campaign. This helps identify who your customers are, what problems they have, what benefits they are looking for, and what kind of messaging will resonate with them.

Even if you have been in business for a while, researching your target market can be helpful if:

• You are launching a service product that will attract new customers.
• You are expanding your market.
• Your advertising is not resonating with your target market.

Response to Ads

Understanding how real people in your target demographic respond to ads can help you create a strong and effective advertising campaign. In this type of research, customers are shown different ads and are asked what they think about the products that are featured, whether they would consider purchasing them, and how well they understand the product after seeing the ad.

You can research customer responses to ads before you launch a campaign by showing competitors' ads to your target customers. This will help you understand their response to advertising and position yourself to stand out in your market.

Outcomes and Success

Use research to measure the success of each advertising campaign . Understanding the impact advertising had on sales, customer perception, and lead generation, as well as its return on investment, can help you craft stronger advertising and make more effective use of your money. You can also use it to compare advertising across different media or markets. This can help your company understand whether it needs to revise its advertising strategy.

Advertising research into the success of a campaign is most effective when that campaign has clear benchmarks for success as well as a way to track customer response, such as unique ordering codes, coupons, or web links.

Well-designed advertising research won't just impact your advertising strategy. As with any component of your marketing mix, the ultimate goal is to increase sales and grow your business.

Key Takeaways

• Advertising research is done to determine which advertisements will be most effective with your target audience. 
• It can be conducted in-house or with a third-party firm. 
• Advertising research helps you understand your customers, create stronger, more interesting ads that hold your customers' attention, and increase sales and grow your business.
• How to Create an Advertising Plan
• What Is Market Research?
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With the shift from traditional to digital advertising, little research has explored how advertising in these different channels creates long-term value for companies.   

An obstacle for researchers is that firms' advertising disclosures are optional and currently limited. New research from the University of New Hampshire that uses novel media advertising data is starting to shed light on the topic.   

In a study published in Management Science , Scarlett Song, assistant professor of accounting at the UNH Peter T. Paul School of Business and Economics, researched three categories of advertising:  

• Paid search (online user searches)  
• Online display (online banners, text ads, and video)  
• Traditional media (television, newspapers, magazines etc.)   

Through examining merger and acquisition deals, Song found that businesses that spend more on traditional and online display advertising had greater brand asset recognition and valuation in mergers and acquisitions, while paid search had more of an impact on immediate sales. 

“Paid search is very close to immediate sales because the consumer can search it, click on it and directly buy the product they’re interested in, so it’s closer to revenue in terms of company performance,” Songs says. “Online display and traditional advertising are more about trying to have a positive brand association with the audience.” 

Song’s research was motivated by the shift toward digital advertising and the lack of advertising data available from publicly traded firms. According to Song's study, less than 30% of public firms shared advertising data in their annual reports, and those that did were vague.     

Research Question 

Internet advertising surpassed television advertising in 2016 and is now the largest advertising channel in the U.S., exceeding $100 billion annually since 2018. While digital has surpassed traditional advertising, very little research exists that explores what firms gain from advertising in the different channels. This study seeks to answer the following question: How do different advertising media affect brand asset recognition? 

Key Research Findings 

Businesses allocating more resources to traditional and online display advertising experience greater brand asset recognition and valuation.  

Paid search advertising has a more immediate impact on sales than traditional and online display advertising.  

Investors react positively to recognized brand value, especially when firms invest more in traditional and online display advertising. 

Research Implications 

This research provides insights into the effectiveness of different advertising channels in building brand recognition and value. By understanding the impact of advertising strategies on brand assets and valuation, businesses can make informed decisions about their advertising investments. The study also highlights the importance of disclosing advertising data in total, as well as a breakdown of advertising into digital versus traditional. Ultimately, this research contributes to understanding the evolving advertising landscape and its implications for business performance and investor decisions. 

Song says one of the most effective ways to evaluate the long-term value creation of various advertising channels is by examining mergers and acquisitions. The rationale behind this is that, in the U.S., advertising is reported in financial statements as expenses on income statements.     

However, a company must recognize and value all its brand assets during mergers and acquisitions. This means that advertising activities, which build brand value, are recorded as brand assets during these deals. 

Song’s study utilized a dataset covering annual advertising expenditures across various media outlets from 2010 to 2019. The final sample comprised 287 mergers and acquisitions involving U.S. publicly traded firms.

The data showed that an increase of 0.1% in traditional advertising as a percentage of sales was associated with a 17% increase in the probability of brand recognition. A similar increase in online display advertising led to a 41% increase in the likelihood of brand recognition.

Additionally, if a company increases its spending on traditional advertising by 1% relative to its total sales, the value of its brand (as considered in a merger or acquisition) is likely to increase by about 0.3% of its sales. Similarly, if the same company boosts its online display advertising spending by 1% of its sales, the brand value is expected to rise by approximately 0.7% of its sales. 

Song says her research shows that investing in traditional and online display advertising builds brand value and can produce ongoing long-term economic benefits for investors or potential acquirers. In addition, disclosing such data can make a business more attractive and shape advertising strategies.    

Song noted that the lack of advertising disclosure has always puzzled her, but executives are likely to question their necessity because such disclosures are not mandatory.    

“They figure, ‘If it’s not required, why do we disclose it?’” Song says. “But my study shows that it’s important to investors, especially in the merger and acquisitions setting, when public companies need to have a higher brand valuation.”    

Song argues that regulators could reconsider the general reporting framework for advertising, including recognizing some types of advertising as assets rather than expenses.    

“The study shows that traditional and online display advertising are creating brand assets for the firms, but the current U.S. accounting reporting framework is not adopting that at all,” Songs says. “Going back 100 or 50 years ago, advertising was all traditional. The nature of advertising has changed, but the reporting framework has not.”     

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Marketing Jun 1, 2024

It’s painful to spend money—unless it’s a refund, new research shows why it feels different to spend the money we get back after returning a product..

Quick, which do you think is larger: the amount of money Americans receive in tax refunds or the amount they get back from returned retail purchases? Turns out, it’s not even close: Americans receive more than $743 billion in refunds from returned items—more than double the $335 billion they get in tax refunds.

So what happens to all this money?

It’s a question of interest to Ata Jami , a research assistant professor of marketing at Kellogg.

“A lot of past research has looked at potential benefits of returns to retailers or what may increase or decrease the likelihood of returns,” says Jami. After all, “retailers don’t like returns,” he says. “They want to sell something and be done with it, but need to have return policies, which actually improve sales.”

Much of the existing literature, in other words, looks at refunds from the retailer’s perspective as a problem to solve—and a considerable one, given that Americans return close to 15 percent of all retail purchases .

Jami, in contrast, wanted to look at how customers conceived of these refunds. “I was wondering if people spend or save the money,” he says. “Refunds are fungible, just like money you have in your wallet or bank account, so rationally speaking it shouldn’t change your behavior with it.”

But Jami believed people might spend refunded money differently from other funds, in part because he had noticed himself treating refunds differently. If a consumer had already spent that money once, he wondered, might they be more willing to part with it again?

Indeed, across a series of studies, Jami found that participants spent refunded money more easily and on more luxurious, unplanned items. He attributes the effect to a phenomenon called “pain of paying,” which is lower when people are using money they’ve already spent.

When money comes back

Jami examined refund-related spending patterns through multiple experimental studies.

For example, in an initial study, participants were told to imagine they had $100 to spend on pants at a clothing store and had found the perfect-fitting pair. However, some were told they had just returned items worth that much at the store, while others were told the money would come from their wallet. All were to imagine that on their way to the register they saw a shirt they really liked. Those who believed they were spending refunded money were 28 percent more likely to make an unplanned purchase than those who would need to reach for their wallet. This supported Jami’s hypothesis that it’s easier to spend money that we’ve already spent before.

“People usually don’t experience the pain twice for the same money because they don’t consider it an additional deduction from their wallet.” — Ata Jami

Jami found similar results when participants were asked to imagine they’d left the clothing store with the purchased pants and saw a cell-phone case they liked in an adjacent store. Those with refunded money in hand were more likely to say they’d purchase the case. In another study with the same premise, Jami found that spending refunded money instead of out-of-pocket money pushed people toward more luxurious items (in this case, a luxurious cellphone case) over utilitarian ones—even when the items in question were the same price.

The results held when consumers made real-world purchase decisions. As part of compensation for participating in an unrelated experiment, some participants were given $5 in cash while others received a flash drive that could then be “returned” immediately to the experimenters for $5 in cash—effectively making that cash a refund. All participants were then given the option to use the cash to buy snacks. Those using refunded money spent 53 percent more on snacks than those who’d been given cash directly.

Tightwads, spendthrifts, and pain of paying

So what makes us more willing to spend refunded money?

It comes down largely to a concept called pain of paying, says Jami. “Different payment experiences cause different levels of pain or pleasure. Paying a ticket or fine results in lots of pain. But necessities like groceries or gasoline are easier to rationalize, which reduces the pain of payment.”

To decide whether to spend, then, we weigh the pain of spending against the pleasure we anticipate from the purchased item.

In a separate study, Jami found that participants felt less pain of paying when spending refunded money to buy an unplanned pair of shoes than wallet money—in this case, 11 percent less, which he was able to statistically link to differences in the groups’ willingness to buy shoes.

“People usually don’t experience the pain twice for the same money because they don’t consider it an additional deduction from their wallet,” says Jami, especially when time has passed since the original purchase.

Another study suggested that people who dispositionally find it painful to spend money—you can think of them as inherent tightwads—are more sensitive to the difference between wallet money and refund money. Spendthrifts, in contrast, are more willing to make an unplanned purchase overall, no matter the source of the money.

Be mindful with refund money

Jami hopes the research helps consumers gain awareness of our natural spending habits. After all, money from a refund “has the same value, the same implication, everything as the money that was not spent before it went toward a purchase. Especially consumers who are concerned about spending should be more mindful of this.”

As a solution, he recommends that those receiving a refund take some time before spending it, with the hope that “maybe after a while you forget about it,” which may bring back some of the pain of payment associated with the returned funds.

Retailers, of course, will have a very different perspective on this. “They want you to spend the refund,” Jami says. “Actual returns are a necessary evil, but retailers also benefit when people return something because they are more likely to spend it in the same place, and to spend it on more luxurious options which usually have higher profit margins.”

Online retailers, for example, could capitalize on the findings from these studies by making purchase recommendations to customers at the point of refund and trying to minimize the gap between returns and subsequent purchase decisions. “Maybe you return a jacket but see lots of opportunities for cross-selling, so the money stays with the store, even if the refund comes as cash and not just store credit,” Jami says. “But overall, the customer and the retailer have opposite incentives for what happens to refund money.”

Research Assistant Professor of Marketing

Sachin Waikar is a freelance writer based in Evanston, Illinois.

Jami, Ata. 2024. "Generous Returners, Vanishing Refunds: How Consumers Spend Monetary Refunds of Returns." Working paper.

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Six Tips for Marketing Operations

May 22, 2024    

During a session at the ANA’s 2024 Marketing Technology for Marketers Conference, General Motors’ Sonali Mathur offered six recommendations to guide organizations’ approaches to marketing operations.

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