Modeling advertising impact at campaign level: Empirical generalizations relative to long-term advertising profit contribution and its antecedents Philippe Aurier & Anne Broz-Giroux # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Research on advertising effectiveness is focused on sales and provides few empirical generalizations on profitability and its antecedents. To fill this gap, we develop an econometric model to capture the impact of advertising at campaign level, using retail panel data coupled with TV audience tracking data. Our study involves 31 brands from six packaged goods categories observed weekly and nationally over 4 years and representing 264 TV campaigns. Although we confirm empirical gener- alizations on the capacity of advertising to increase sales, we establish a different picture for profitability. Only 11 % of campaigns make a positive contribution to profit. Advertising is more profitable for challengers and medium brands, whereas leaders and small brands (recent or established) have a lower profitability. Advertis- ing intensity in the category and campaign carry-over emerge as the strongest (respectively) negative and positive drivers of profitability. The antecedents of carry-over are also analyzed and discussed. Keywords Advertising campaign . Campaign profitability antecedents . Advertising carry-over . Advertising Adstock . Advertising econometric model The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of advertising campaigns on sales and profits (vs. sales only). Several questions remain unanswered in this regard. First, the marketing discipline has been urged to develop performance-based financial metrics (Hu et al. 2007; McAlister et al. 2007; Rust et al. 2004). Yet, most research focuses on sales, overlooking profitability (Osinga et al. 2011). On this basis, advertising is considered more successful for small brands or new brands, a finding Mark Lett DOI 10.1007/s11002-013-9252-3 P. Aurier (*) School of Business Administration, Montpellier Research in Management, University of Montpellier2, Place Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier, France e-mail: philippe.aurier@univ-montp2.fr A. Broz-Giroux IRI, 4 rue André Derain-BP 49, 78240 Chambourcy Cedex, France e-mail: anne.giroux@IRIworldwide.com