Measuring exposure to advertising: A look at gross rating points

Abstract

This article evaluates the relative merits of advertising expenditures and gross rating points (GRPs) as alternative measures of advertising exposure. Theoretically, GRPs and appropriately deflated advertising expenditures should provide identical representations of exposure. This hypothesis was tested using Canadian butter advertising data for the period 1984–1989. Our statistical analysis suggested the level of dollar outlays for television advertising and the associated estimated GRPs are positively related; this, however, was not the case in several instances for period-to-period changes in the level of expenditures. Because the problems of measurement errors, quality variation, and aggregation over media are shared by both data series, our tentative conclusion is that in practice GRPs are not necessarily superior to expenditures. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.