A description of a variety of experimental designs follows. For each design: (1) indicate the type of experiment that is being used, (2) briefly discuss the threats to internal and external validity and identify those you regard as the most serious, and (3) describe how you would improve the design to overcome the problems you have identified.

1. In the Bayer deceptive advertising case, an issue was whether people were influenced by some Bayer advertisements to believe that Bayer was more effective than other aspirins in relieving pain. In an experiment designed to address that issue, a Bayer print advertisement was shown to 428 people projectable to the U.S. adult population, and two television advertisements were shown to 240 people recruited from local organizations (which received $1.00 for each participant) in nine communities in Massachusetts, Missouri, and Georgia. After being exposed to the advertisements, respondents were asked to identify the main points of the advertisement, what the advertisement meant by its major claim, and whether the advertisement suggested that Bayer is more effective at relieving pain than any other brand of aspirin. The percentage of respondents were tabulated who, in response to the open-ended questions, said (1) that Bayer is best and (2) that Bayer is better than other aspirins. Whether the respondents made explicit reference to effectiveness also was noted. These percentages were used to address the issue. For example, across all surveys it was found that 10 percent felt that a main point of the advertisement was that Bayer is best or better than other aspirins in effectiveness. Also across all surveys, 71 percent felt that the advertisement suggested that Bayer works better than any other aspirin.

2. In 1982, the instrument group of National Chemical decided to change from a modest advertising effort aimed at generating leads for its sales force to a more substantial program aimed at increased awareness and preference. A major vehicle for this campaign was Chemical Process Instrumentation, a leading trade magazine. To evaluate the advertising, a survey was made of the readers of that magazine before and after the one-year campaign. In each case, a systematic sample of 2,500 readers was sent questionnaires.

Responses were obtained from 572 for the before sample and 513 for the after sample. Among the questions were

• List the companies you consider to be the leading manufacturers of the following products.
• Check the one manufacturer (for each product) that you would first consider when purchasing the item.

The results showed

The results were averaged across the major products carried by National Chemical.

3. An account executive notices that a client is sponsoring a program that will be shown on about three-fourths of the network's station lineup. This provides a possibility for testing the effectiveness of the new commercials being used. The executive's letter to the research supervisor reads, in part: "What if we picked several markets that will receive the program and several that won't? Then within each of these we can measure attitudes and purchasing among a randomly selected group of consumers.After the broadcast we can interview other randomly selected groups on the same questions."

Transcribed Image Text:

Percentage aware of National Chemical Percentage prefer National Chemical Before 23 8 After 46 11