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J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2011) 39:906921 DOI 10.1007/s11747-010-0224-3
ORIGINAL EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
The effectiveness of publicity versus advertising: a meta-analytic investigation of its moderators
Martin Eisend & Franziska Kster
Received: 27 April 2010 /Accepted: 7 September 2010 /Published online: 6 October 2010 # Academy of Marketing Science 2010
Abstract This study provides an answer to the question whether and under which conditions publicity is more or less effective than advertising. Advertising refers to paid communication that identifies the message sponsor, whereas publicity is communication that secures editorial space in media for promotion purposes and does not have an identifiable sponsor. The primary advantage of advertising over publicity is the sponsors control over message content; its disadvantages are audience skepticism and lack of credibility. We investigate this trade-off between credibility effects and effects of recipients processing and evaluation of message content. Results of a meta-analytic structural equation model show that the positive credibility effect of publicity is on average about three times as strong as the information evaluation effect, supporting the overall superiority of publicity over advertising. This effect, however, is moderated by prior knowledge and only holds for products about which recipients lack prior knowledge. The effects change for known products when advertising becomes superior. The effectiveness of publicity depends on further moderating variables. In particular, academic studies tend to underestimate the true effects of publicity over advertising due to experimental manipulations. Campaigns that combine publicity and advertising weaken the effects of publicity, whereas advertorials (i.e., advertisements
disguised as editorial material) are more effective, since they combine the advantages of both publicity and advertising. The results have theoretical and practical implications.
Keywords Publicity. Advertising . Meta-analysis . Structural equation model
Introduction
In recent years, organizations have placed increasingly greater importance on marketing-oriented publicity over advertising (Ries and Ries 2002; Shimp 2007). Despite the widespread belief among practitioners that publicity outperforms advertising (e.g., Hausman 2003; Pohl 2008), previous study results are far from consistent: some studies find no differences between the impact of publicity and advertising (e.g., Hallahan 1999a, b; Jo 2004; Schmidt and Hitchon 1999), and some studies show that advertising even outperforms publicity (e.g., Jacoby and Hoyer 1989; Salmon et al. 1985). Furthermore, both advertising and publicity have their disadvantages in terms of...