Have Laboratory Experiments Become Detached from Advertiser Goals? A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This meta-analysis of 443 laboratory experiments published over five decades examines the extent to which laboratory work has become detached from the goals of advertisers. Detachment occurs when the situation constructed in the laboratory bears little resemblance to the conditions that characterize mass media advertising. Detachment was measured by six factors: (1) forcing exposure rather than arranging for non-focal attention to embedded advertisements; (2) failing to measure choice; (3) not incorporating competitive advertisements into the design to allow for interference; (4) taking immediate measurements instead of allowing for decay; (5) not arranging for repeated exposures; and (6) exclusively using fictitious or unfamiliar brands. The meta-analysis reveals a high and growing degree of detachment, thus providing empirical support for views expressed by Preston (1985), Wells (1993), and others. Practitioners are cautioned that the laboratory tradition appears to offer only limited information about what works in mass media advertising.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 35 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.