Modeling the Effectiveness of Hourly Direct-Response Radio Commercials

The authors investigate the impact of direct-response commercials on incoming calls at a national call center. To this end, the authors analyze the data of a fast service for repairs of (parts of) a durable consumption good in Flanders, Belgium. The authors have access to data at the 15 minute interval covering 30 months in which 5172 radio commercials were broadcasted on six radio stations at various times of the day and at with differing commercial lengths. Their model is a two-level model, where the first-level estimates of the short-run and long-run effects are correlated with various aspects of the commercial is the second level. Their main conclusion is that GRPs are the key drivers of the effectiveness of commercials.