Measuring Above the Line Advertising

Something that is becoming more and more important is quantifying you ATL Advertising budget. This is easy in some industries (eCommerce) and very difficult in others (Automotive). You can measure or analyze the impact of a highly viewed commercial, you see a direct correlation during and immediately after the commercial hits (this is usually a three hour buzz due to east coast and west coast air times), but how do you measure the constant regional and local adverting lift? Well you can look at traffic in those regions and cross reference the regional or local GRP's to the spikes by analyzing the geographic data on your site. This is just one thought there are many others out there. I think it is important for companies to understand how ATL effects their website and bottom line. There aren't and concrete way (yet) to obtain ROI of TV but with VOD and the upcoming ability to measure down to the household, we may get a lot closer. Think about it, you see a commercial (the cable company knows what show/commercial you viewed) you then go to the internet and view the URL that was in the commercial (the two are cross-referenced) and we now know that commercial had in impact on your purchase, but that is the future. Today, the best way to quantify your ATL is to turn it off and see what is the impact.