Evaluating Return on Investment of Multimedia Advertising with a Single-Source Panel: A Retail Case Study

ABSTRACT Retail marketers9 understanding of radio and television advertising campaigns9 impact on retail store visits would be a major breakthrough in evaluating return on media investment. This article presents results from pilot research using Arbitron9s Portable People Meter (PPM[sup SM], a mark of Arbitron Inc.)--a unique audience measurement system that enables radio, broadcast television and cable television usage, and retail store visits to be captured from a single-source national panel of consumers. The pilot research indicates that retail store visits correlated with media advertising exposure, illustrating the promise of a single-source research panel to measure ROI in terms of store visit behavior, an important driver of retailer financial results.