We estimate the distribution of television advertising elasticities and the distribution of the advertising return on investment (ROI) for a large number of products in many categories. Our results reveal substantially smaller advertising elasticities compared to the results documented in the literature, as well as a sizable percentage of statistically insignificant or negative estimates. The results are robust to functional form assumptions and are not driven by insufficient statistical power or measurement error. The ROI analysis shows negative ROIs at the margin for more than 80% of brands, implying over-investment in advertising by most firms. Further, the overall ROI of the observed advertising schedule is only positive for one third of all brands.

中文翻译：

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电视广告效果和盈利能力：来自 288 个品牌的可推广结果

我们估计了电视广告弹性的分布和许多类别的大量产品的广告投资回报率（ROI）的分布。我们的结果显示，与文献中记录的结果相比，广告弹性要小得多，而且在统计上不显着或负估计的比例相当大。结果对于函数形式假设是稳健的，并且不受统计能力不足或测量误差的影响。投资回报率分析显示，超过 80% 的品牌的边际投资回报率为负，这意味着大多数公司对广告的过度投资。此外，观察到的广告时间表的整体投资回报率仅对所有品牌的三分之一是正的。