Things were complicated enough for those seeking to research and understand advertising effects – and then BAM we found ourselves in the midst of a digital revolution. The proliferation of channels alone is a big issue for advertisers, on top of this we have new media, and, just as importantly, we are seeing radical new models of advertising: new ways that consumers can interact with the advertising, new targeting models, delivery of totally different audience profiles, different capacity for reach in both time and space, and so on. Needless to say our measurement systems are struggling to catch up, while at the same time technology is making possible the collection of metrics that could only be dreamed of previously.
We can either stumble blindly into this brave new world, or we can take stock of what we know and seek to apply this knowledge to the changing world.
The future is always uncharted territory, but one of the core benefits of science has been to give us some predictive capability. Reliable prediction comes only from established empirical laws. These are simply patterns, relationships between things that have been observed over and over again across a wide set of conditions, e.g. if you heat water to 100 degrees Celsius it starts boiling. This occurs if you heat the water with gas or electricity, regardless of the size or shape of the pot, or the material the pot is made from, whether you heat it slowly or quickly, during day or night, and so on. This generalisation has held across time since its discovery in 1742 (immune to all the changes that occurred over time) and across countries. But it only applies around sea-level, if we go up a mountain the water boils at a lower temperature.
So this law provides us with prediction, something which is incredibly useful, but it also gives us insight into why the world is the way it is by showing what conditions do not affect the law and what does. All I need know is your height above sea-level to predict the boiling point of the pot of water you are holding (height above sea-level turns out to matter because of air pressure which varies with height – another empirical law).
Contrary to popular belief the social sciences, including marketing, lend themselves to empirical laws. For example, the reach of an advertising campaign increases with spend, but not monotonically, the reach return on spend diminishes rapidly. This is true across a wide range of conditions, including different media. It’s basic and very important knowledge for anyone planning a campaign.
Laws like this shine a light to guide us through this digital advertising revolution.
But you have to look to find laws. Marketing research has a poor track record in this regard, but even worse, even when laws exist we tend to overlook them, constantly trying to formulate new models each ignorant of empirically grounded prior knowledge. We can’t afford to keep making this mistake.
So now is the time to take stock. Hence the conference “Empirical Generalizations in Advertising”, an invitation-only event for advertising thought leaders from industry and academia. The conference will feature papers presenting empirical laws about how advertising and media work, these will be juxtaposed against the changes we are seeing in the advertising world with the aim of making informed predictions.
Prior to the conference all participants will be polled on what they consider the 3 most important rules they have confidence in. The results will be presented at the conference and in a special issue of the Journal of Advertising Research.
- Byron Sharp
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