Evidence-based advertising

Complex phenomena such as advertising are difficult to understand. As a result, extensive and repeated testing of diverse alternative reasonable hypotheses is necessary in order to increase knowledge about advertising. This calls for experimental studies: laboratory, field, and quasi-experimental studies. Fortunately, much useful empirical research of this kind has already been conducted on how to create persuasive advertisements. A literature review, conducted over 16 years, summarised knowledge from 687 sources that drew upon more than 3,000 studies (Armstrong 2010). The review led to the development of 195 principles (condition-action statements) for advertising. We were unable to find any of these principles in a convenience sample of nine advertising textbooks and three practitioner handbooks. The advice in these books ignored conditions for the most part. The books also tended to ignore empirical evidence, which is how we learn about conditions; of the more than 7,200 sources referenced in these books, only 30 overlapped with the 687 used to develop the principles. By using the evidence-based principles, practitioners may be able to increase the persuasiveness of advertisements. Relevant evidence-based papers have been published at the rate of 20 per year from 2000 to 2010. The rate of knowledge development could be increased if journal editors invited papers with evidence-based research findings and if open peer review were provided on a continuing basis.