There are various ways to define and measure the
effectiveness of sales promotions. The measures typically
used are short term, as sales promotions are mostly used to
produce short-term effects. This includes measuring the
effectiveness of sales promotions by sales volume (Dhar and
Hoch, 1996), profits (Hoch et al., 1994) and consumer usage
of the promotion (Babakus et al., 1988). However, it has been
noted that a “brand’s sales volume is by far the best measure
of the performance of a sales promotion” (Totten and Block,
1987). For the purposes of this study, the effectiveness of sales
promotions is measured by market share, which is a proxy for
sales volume. Market shares are calculated based on choices
for promotion types, made under the conditions of the quasiexperiment.
The effectiveness of sales promotions is then
determined by a comparison between the choice shares of
promotion types across different products. This is consistent
with Chandon et al. (2000).