Evaluation of Advertising Performance

ONE OF THE axioms of American business is that "advertising pays." But in the area of advertising to business and industry, it is virtually impossible for any one advertiser to prove this conclusively to himself-let alone to find out how much it pays. Professors Neil H. Borden and Martin V. Marshall declare "that you simply cannot measure advertising's effect ... Methods to measure its effect upon consumer buying behavior or upon consumer's mental status, short of buying action, are still crude and hard to develop."1 Richard D. Crisp has gone so far as to say: "Unfortunately, there is not even a promising approach to an approximate measurement of advertising effectiveness visible on the farthest horizon."2 Clarence E. Eldridge, formerly Vice President in Charge of Marketing of General Foods and then of Campbell Soup, has said: "No method has yet been devised that