Advertising Response Functions and Media Planning

In the first part of this paper the definition and use of advertising response functions are examined critically. It is shown that advertising response functions cannot be regarded as models of the advertising process whose parameters are known, that only a small section of the complex functions often postulated is relevant to media planning, that measures of advertising impacts or exposures are relative rather than absolute, and consequently that the “response function” only shows a notional relationship between advertising response and exposure, which normally needs to be calibrated to the advertising appropriation.In the second part a media planning system which utilizes a “control parameter” rather than a “response function” is described. The main feature of the “control parameter” is that it adapts itself so that an appropriate relationship between response and exposure is used, whatever the appropriation. Other features of the system are described.