Bol, Jan Willem (1987) Testing the effectiveness of advertising strategies for established brands : an empirical investigation into and a technique for measuring the response of established brands' sales to changes in advertising weight and copy using continuous panel records. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Preview

PDF WRAP_THESIS_Bol_1987.pdf - Draft Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (25Mb)

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Managing the advertising function for established brands
requires an understanding of the nature of the advertising-sales
relationship. Historically, both experimental and non-experimental
approaches have been used to investigate this relationship, but the
impressive amount of literature in this area seems to have identified
only a number of broad generalizations. In part, this is due to the
inadequacies of the different methodologies and data sources that have
been used, which make difficult a comparison of the reported studies
for the purpose of establishing guidelines for strategic advertising
management. Continuous panel-based experimental research seems to
offer greater potential for providing further insights into the nature
of the advertising-sales relationship.
The research first investigates the appropriateness and
sensitivity of a number of models in identifying and quantifying the
effect of changes in advertising strategy on sales, using The Test
Marketing Group's (TMG) consumer diary and scanner panel data. It is
shown that the ability to identify an advertising effect, referred to
as the system's sensitivity, is significantly influenced by a number
of factors, and that it can be predicted from the number of purchase
transactions of the test brand.
By using one specific model, thirty-five advertising strategy
tests are analyzed at the aggregate, panel level, in order to estimate
the probability of causing an advertising effect on all panelists, and
to identify factors that influence the effect. Application of this
methodology represents the first consistent analysis of a collection
of historical data with the objective of developing a knowledge base
regarding advertising strategy making and testing. It is found the
probability of causing an advertising effect does not differ between
copy and weight tests, but that a change in copy carries a significant
risk of causing a negative effect. Increases in weight are
particularly effective in causing a positive effect for small share
brands. among the tests that are analyzed there is a 37.1% probability
of observing an advertising effect at the panel level, which is lower
than the probability observed in the literature.
Subsequent analysis of the same tests examines the effect of a
change in advertising strategy at the disaggregate level, that is, on
certain segments of panelists. The results of this analysis show that
significant advertising effects are observed more often, thereby
increasing the probability of observing an advertising effect to 60%.
Thus, by applying one methodology consistently across a set of
panel-based advertising strategy tests, it is possible to identify a
number of empirical norms that can aid managers in determining
effective advertising strategies for their established brands. This so
far has been difficult to derive from reported advertising studies. It
is also suggested that further insights into the advertising-sales
relationship can be obtained by increasing TMG's ability to specify
advertising exposure. An experimental data collection system developed
and tested on the basis of this further research is presented and
evaluated.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Advertising -- Brand name products, Consumer panels
Official Date:	January 1987
Dates:	Date Event January 1987 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Industrial and Business Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Hirst, Melvyn
Extent:	2 v.
Language:	eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads