Does advertising produce sales today or sales tomorrow?

The traditional evaluation of advertising effects has been inefficient because of deficiencies in the research methods used. Sales measures taken at bi-monthly intervals have obscured short-term movements, many of which are driven by advertising. Psychological tracking, by concentrating on long-term changes, is not even relevant to short-term effects. Using the technique of pure single-source research, it is possible to demonstrate a powerful short-term sales effect from advertising, but this does not apply to all campaigns. Indeed some campaigns actually depress sales. Campaigns can also have a measureable long-term effect, but a short term effect is a precondition for this to happen, and the short-term boost is often lost and thus has no lingering effect. The research on which this article is based also demonstrates that a single exposure of an effective advertisement can trigger immediate sales, and that additional exposures immediately afterwards generate very few additional sales. This points to the unwisdom of the traditional policy of concentrating media expenditure into flights/bursts.