The First 120 Years of Advertising Effectiveness Research

This article looks at the evolution of ad ef­ficacy research approaches and methods by tracking some key research and methods that have changed the development of advertising over the past 120 years. The aim of the article is to review developments in advertising effective­ness research and outline the main evolutionary stages. In a situation of growing competition, ef­fective spending of advertising budgets is a must. The need to draw clear steps in the evo­lution of research on advertising effectiveness is predetermined by the growing number of professionals involved in the field of market­ing and advertising in particular and the lack of in-depth publications on this topic in Bul­garian. The advertising boom in Bulgaria, which we have witnessed over the past 20 years, also emerging in rising advertising budgets, is a pre­requisite for interest in research to measure advertising efficiency. Determining the evolu­tion of advertising effectiveness measure helps to establish the stage of development in which this measurement is located. From this per­spective the purpose of the article is to serve as a starting point for future advertising effec­tiveness research.