Abstract:

Clients want marketing research that informs them about what actions they should take, not only what their current situation is. This requires that marketing research use multiple measures instead of single measures, since single measures most often cannot be used to investigate causal relationships. If single measures are used, or if causal analysis with multiple measures is not properly carried out, the absolute or relative influence of one variable on another is easily under- or overestimated. This paper uses three examples from advertising research to illustrate and discuss the risk caused by improper analysis of drawing erroneous conclusions regarding causal relationships.