Abstract:

About a year ago, we released the Family Circle Study of Print Advertising Effectiveness. This was the first fruit of a joint effort begun two years earlier with Citicorp’s POS Information Services Division, which invested approximately $200,000,000 in the development of a unique scanner generated a database, and Simmons Market Research Bureau, a principal source of magazine audience measurement data in the United States. The study used Citicorp's large household-specific database to measure differences in actual purchase behavior between two groups of demographically matched households with differing levels of exposure to magazine advertising. We have since undertaken several other projects utilizing this database to enable us to better understand the way magazine advertising effects product sales. We are also using the database to help us refine our own consumer marketing programs for our magazines. Today, I am going to review the results of that initial study of advertising effectiveness, and to share with you the first results of a study of the effects of frequency on advertising sales.