‘Complexity of Multi-media Effects’ is a new report funded by the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), a non-profit organization which supports academic research in marketing science theory and business practice.

The report studies over 50 durable goods and non-durable goods brands and finds that 55% of the multi-media investment for these brands resulted in no increase in sales. This poor ROI is attributed to poor allocation of budget due to inefficient methodologies for measuring multi-media impact.

The methodology that the report promotes is a form of regression analysis called MARS, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines.

The report encourages decision makers when analysing impact of media in an advertising campaign to pay attention to medium-specific responses rather than an aggregated total and also to consider possible detrimental effects of combining different forms of media. This is because of the additional finding that cross-media effects may not always be synergistic but their interaction could instead be antagonistic.

Emphasis is also placed on the importance of the correct balance of different media. ''A little too much in one medium can mean the whole message becomes saturated and stops having a positive impact,'' says Demetrios Vakratsas, a lead researcher for the report, Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Canada.