Evaluating Media Campaign Effectiveness: Others Do It, Why Don't We?

Lori Megdal, Megdal & Associates
Sylvia Bender, California Energy Commission

Keywords

Abstract

Advertising is often an important part of the strategy mix used to stimulate conservation actions and energy efficiency program participation. At the same time, advertising, along with broader energy-related social marketing campaigns, rarely receive the same level of evaluation effort as energy efficiency programs. Reliable estimates of advertising’s impacts and effects on programs, useful information for campaign improvement, and data to assess optimal investment levels cannot be obtained without measurement and evaluation.

Social marketing techniques are widely used in influencing behavior in other social contexts, for example, food advertising (i.e., milk and egg campaigns), anti-smoking, anti-drug, disease control, health concerns, tourism, and the environment. This paper uses a “case study” approach to examine relevant media campaign evaluation methods used in these fields. The evaluation case studies provide quick overviews of the evaluation research designs and the usefulness of the findings.

Looking outside our own field provides the foundation for more effective evaluation of mass media campaigns in the energy efficiency field. Many of the research designs and evaluation methods could be applied in evaluating efficiency advertising.