Prospective marketing meta-analysis : the effect of TV vs new media car ads on consumer car consideration probabilities in China and USA

Abstract

This thesis addresses a major marketing challenge faced by global companies: how to spend online marketing budgets with maximum effect on end user behavior. Specifically, we examine the effectiveness of strategically placed online car ads on end users' new car considerations. The research in this paper is the final piece of a 3-year investigative collaboration between General Motors and MIT and spans the USA, China, and Netherlands. In this thesis, I show how the Chrome extension used for injecting ads on webpages in the USA marketing study of last year was adapted to the Chinese and Netherlands markets. I discuss the data collection and analysis of 2550 Chinese participants and the improvements we have made for Netherlands where the study is currently in the data collection stage. I also analyze the best ad strategies from pooling of USA and China data. My research shows that in China, TV, social media, TV+social media, and imminence of purchase had the highest statistically significant positive effect on advertised car considerations. In USA, TV, social media, age, and education had the highest statistically significant effects on advertised car considerations. When pooled together, TV, social media, TV+search, banner+search, banner +TV+social media / search combinations, age, education, all had statistically significant effects on car consideration probabilities.