Abstract:

The Marketing Communications Research Unit at Cranfield School of Management is currently conducting a long term empirical study of the Measurement of Advertising Effectiveness. It is sponsored by some 20 major organisations in the U.K., covering consumer goods, service and industrial markets. In the course of this work the role of research in advertising decision making has been examined and some observations on this are presented. The first part of the paper summarises some of the influences of company structure on the nature of the research effort and the resultant impact on advertising activities. In the second part, company activities directed towards establishing the effects of advertising on market performance are reported upon and some general findings presented. The paper is concluded by a brief statement of the authors' research plan which is designed to allow some overall conclusions to be drawn on the nature of research required for various advertising decisions.