Measuring Changes in Advertiser Purchases from COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Policies

During the spring of 2020, life across America changed as schools, colleges, and businesses shut down to slow the spread of COVID-19. Millions were required to cease all activities and follow the state-mandated stay-at-home (SAH) orders. In lieu of other options, many turned to the classic American standard of entertainment: television. This paper aims to measure changes in advertisements throughout these lockdowns. However, as the reader likely knows, not all states engaged in such strict regulation of COVID. This provides a prime opportunity for a difference-in-differences regression, with states that enacted SAH policies serving as the treatment group and those that did not as the control group.