A Longitudinal Cross-Product Analysis of Media-Budget Allocations: How Economic and Technological Disruptions Affected Media Choices Across Industries

Abstract

The advertising and communications literature has already provided multiple frameworks to help advertisers choose the proper media for the types of products and services they wish to promote. We attempt to consolidate these competing (but consistent) frameworks into a common set of media prescriptions, and utilize longitudinal media-budget data for 143 products/services in a major media market (Spain) to verify whether advertisers have conformed to the advice provided by the literature. We also use this long cross-product history of media-budget allocations to study how advertisers reacted to economic (the Great Recession of 2008) and technological (the emergence of the Internet as an advertising medium) shifts in their media allocations.

Keywords: Advertising, Media Budget, Media Choices, Internet, Economic Recession