DVJ presenting and hosting a special session at EMAC 2024

The annual European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC) took place from May 28th to 31st in Bucharest, Romania. As the largest European conference on marketing, it attracted around 1000 academics from around the globe. DVJ was represented by three colleagues — Jelle Quak, Mark Vroegrijk, and Lisette Kruizinga — who attended to stay updated on the latest scientific developments, connect with academics on existing and new cooperative projects, present and host their own special session, and draw inspiration from the wealth of knowledge shared.

This blog focuses on our special session, while a separate blog discusses insights gained from attending other sessions.

Recent academic research confirms the benefits firms gain from attending and actively participating in academic conferences (Baruffaldi & Poege, 2024). We noticed that we were among the few practitioners attending, and even fewer who presented. We are proud that our special session was accepted, marking a step towards bridging the gap between practice and academia.

Special Session on Advertising

On Friday morning, Lisette kicked off the session with an introduction to the theme ‚New Developments in Advertising Research.‘ She shared various findings from DVJ’s extensive data on pre-testing ads across hundreds of clients, dozens of countries, and categories. Lisette emphasised that collaboration with academic researchers adds immense value, generating new insights beneficial to both parties. The three papers presented in the remainder of the session stemmed from different PhD projects sponsored by DVJ Insights.

Figure 1: Dr. Lisette Kruizinga-de Vries

Out-of-Home Advertising: Content or Context?

Veronica Burbulea presented the first academic article from her PhD thesis, focusing on out-of-home (OOH) advertising. Despite its widespread use, high visibility, and relatively low production costs, OOH advertising remains under-researched.

Veronica’s findings indicate that both ad content and context significantly influence effectiveness. Simpler OOH ads, with minimal information and colours, perform better.

Additionally, emotional ads should be placed in environments that contrast with the ad’s design, while ads with high feature complexity should be placed in contexts that complement their design.

Figure 2: Veronica Burbulea (PhD student)

How advertising consistency and uniqueness drive sales

The second article was presented by Evert de Haan on the consistency and uniqueness of ads. We know that ad effectiveness has been declining over the years. Reasons for this might be a drop in ad creativity, increased clutter and low uniqueness of ads, or inconsistency in branding (e.g., Mafael et al., 2021; Sethuraman et al., 2011). Thus, this study examines how the consistency and uniqueness of print ads over time affect its effectiveness.

Consistency over time is good as it helps consumers recognise the brand but can also make ads boring. Uniqueness is needed to stand out, but too unique ads may be unrecognisable or confusing (e.g., Rosengren et al. 2020). Via a specific deep learning method 8,548 Dutch automotive print ads, published from January 2007 to December 2023, are classified on consistency and uniqueness. The first analysis results show that unique print ads can drive sales. For both consistency and uniqueness, the effects are shown to be non-linear, i.e., there seems to be an optimum amount of consistency and uniqueness.

Figure 3: Dr. Evert de Haan

Integrated advertising mix planning to grow the brand and sales

The final paper in the special session was about how firms should plan their advertising concerning budgets, channels, always-on offline or online, and the timing of the campaigns.

Earlier studies mainly looked at these decisions in isolation, but it is important to consider them simultaneously to determine which strategies are most effective to grow the brand and drive sales. The first results, as presented by Maarten Gijsenberg, show that always-on and channel decisions are the most important – and explain the largest chunk of brand building and sales. Results differ for whether you are a small or a large brand, and which metric you want to grow.

Figure 4: Prof. dr. Maarten Gijsenberg

Reflecting on a Successful Conference

We’re thrilled to share our experiences of participating and presenting at the largest European academic marketing conference. It was definitely a vibrant and successful conference; a fantastic opportunity to reconnect with old colleagues, forge new connections, present our latest work, and immerse ourselves in a series of insightful presentations on marketing research.

Stay tuned in the coming months as we publish a series of articles on the academic papers that were showcased during our special session at the conference. Exciting developments are ahead of us!

References

Baruffaldi, S. & F. Poege (2024). Like Stars: How Firms Learn at Scientific Conferences. Management Science, ahead of print.

Mafael, A., Raithel, S., Taylor, C. R., & Stewart, D. W. (2021). Measuring the role of uniqueness and consistency in developing effective advertising. Journal of Advertising, 50(4), 494-504.

Prendergast, G.P. & C.C. Hang (1999). The effectiveness of exterior bus advertising in Hong Kong: A preliminary investigation. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 11(3), 33-50.

Rosengren, S., Eisend, M., Koslow, S., & Dahlen, M. (2020). A meta-analysis of when and how advertising creativity works. Journal of Marketing, 84(6), 39-56.

Sethuraman, R., Tellis, G. J., & Briesch, R. A. (2011). How well does advertising work? Generalizations from a 0meta-analysis of brand advertising elasticities. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(3), 457-471.