Quasi-experiments
Although the gold standard of experimentation is the randomized controlled trial, there are many cases where it is not possible to run a randomized controlled trial, be it for technical or practical reasons. Here are some examples:
- Market-wide changes or rebranding efforts: When a company undergoes a complete rebranding or introduces market-wide changes to its branding strategy, it’s often impractical to isolate variables and randomly assign different treatments (for example, old versus new branding) to consumers in a real-world setting. The impact of these changes needs to be assessed across the entire market without the possibility of controlling exposure.
- Legal or ethical restrictions: In some cases, the nature of the marketing experiment might involve manipulations that are ethically questionable or legally restricted. For example, experiments involving price discrimination (offering different prices to different individuals at the same time...
