Advertising effectiveness measurement intermediate constructs and measures

Abstract: Advertisers invest substantial amounts of money in advertising and need to know whether these investments pay off. Given that advertising generally has both short-term and long-term effects and that the behavioral effects of advertising are influenced by numerous other factors, intermediate measures are needed that gauge the mental effects of advertising in the target audience.This thesis explores three broad issues in the measurement of intermediate advertising effectiveness: The relationship between different intermediate measures, the ability of advertising pretest measures to predict the outcome of advertising campaigns, and how measures of certain constructs should be operationalized. These issues were investigated in two empirical studies.The main result from the two studies is that measurement of advertising effectiveness requires multiple measures that are analyzed simultaneously. The results also indicate that some commonly used intermediate measures are not correctly understood and are, therefore, sometimes used for the wrong purposes. This thesis discusses the implications of these and other findings for academics and practitioners.