2007 Thomson South-Western

Assessing Ad Message

Effectiveness

Chapter Twelve

2

Chapter Twelve Objectives

• Explain the rationale and importance of message research.

• Describe the various research techniques used to measure consumer’s recognition and recall of advertising messages.

• Illustrate measures of physiological arousal to advertisements.

3

Chapter Twelve Objectives

• Explicate the role of persuasion measurement, including pre- and post- testing of consumer preference.

• Explain the meaning and operation of single-source measures of advertising effectiveness.

• Examine some key conclusions regarding television advertising effectiveness.

4

Overview of Advertising Research

• More than 80% of advertisers and agencies pretest television commercials before airing them on a national basis.

It’s not easy or inexpensivebut the value outweighs the drawbacks.

5

What Does Advertising Research Involve?

• To test effectiveness of messages• Pretesting ads during developmental stages• Posttesting to determine if messages achieve

their established objectives

Media Effectiveness (covered later)

Message Research

6

Four Stages At Which Ad Message Research Might Be Conducted

1. Copy development stage

2. “Rough” stage

3. Final production stage

4. After the ad has been run in the media

7

Industry Standards for Message Research

Principle 1: provide measurements that are relevant to the advertising objectives

Principle 2: requires agreement about how the results will be used in advance of each specific test

Principle 3: provides multiple measurements because single measurements are generally inadequate

PACT Principles

8

Industry Standards for Message Research

Principle 4: based on a model of human response to communications

Reception of a stimulus

Comprehension of the stimulus

The response of the stimulus

Principle 5: allows for consideration of whether the advertising stimulus should be exposed more than once

PACT Principles

9

Industry Standards for Message Research

Principle 6: recognizes that a more finished piece of copy can be evaluated more soundly

Alternative executions be tested in the same degree of finish

Principle 7: system provides controls to avoid the bias normally found in the exposure context

PACT Principles

10

Industry Standards for Message Research

Principle 8: takes into account basic considerations of sample definition

Requires that the sample be representative of the target audience

Principle 9: can demonstrate reliability and validity

A reliable test is one that yields consistent results

A valid test is one that is predictive of the marketplace performance

PACT Principles

11

What Can Be Learned from Message Research?

• Message research is needed to diagnose an advertisement’s prospective equity-enhancing and sales-expanding potential.

• The ARF assessed which of 35 measures best predicts the sales effectiveness of television commercials. The only definitive conclusion of their study is that no one measure is universally appropriate or best.

12

Quantitative Message Research

Measurement

Understanding

Control

Improvement

13

Illustrative Message Research Methods

14

Measures of Recognition & Recall

Advertising Response Model (ARM) links responses to the 27 descriptive adjectives to consumers’ attitudes toward both the ad and the advertised brand and to purchase interest.

Bruzzone test

15

Measures of Recognition & Recall

Provides valid prediction of actual marketplace performance along with being relatively inexpensive

Doesn’t provide a before-the-fact indication

Tests offer important info for evaluating a commercial’s effectiveness and whether it should continue to run

Tests are performed online

Bruzzone test

16

Measures of Recognition & Recall

• Used to assess the effectiveness of test commercials and to ID strengths and weaknesses

(1) Claimed-recall scores—indicate the percentage of respondents who recall seeing the ad

(2) Related-recall scores—indicate the percentage of respondents who accurately describe specific advertising elements

Burke Day-After Recall Testing

17

Measures of Recognition & Recall

Coke execs reject recall as a valid measure

1) Recall simply measures whether an ad is received but not whether the message is accepted

2) Recall is biased in favor of younger consumers

Burke Day-After Recall Testing

18

Measures of Recognition & Recall

3) Recall scores generated by ads are not predictive of sales performance

4) Day-after recall testing is biased against certain types of advertising content

Understate the memorability of commercials that employ emotional or feeling-oriented themes and are biased in favor of rational or thought-oriented commercials

Burke Day-After Recall Testing

19

Measures of Recognition & Recall

• Ads that are better liked are more likely to be remembered and to persuade

• Efforts are now made to measure consumer’s affective and emotional reactions to ads

Measures of Physiological Arousal

20

Measures of Recognition & Recall

• Galvanometer—measures minute levels of perspiration in response to emotional arousal

• Pupillometric tests—measure pupil dilation

• Advertising researchers use changes in physiological functions to indicate the actual, unbiased amount of arousal resulting from ads.

Measures of Physiological Arousal

21

Measures of Persuasion

Used when an advertiser’s objective is to influence

consumers’ attitudes toward and preference for the advertised

brand.

22

Predictive Validity of ARS Persuasion Scores

23

Measures of Sales Response

Single-Source Systems

Gather purchase data from panels ofhouseholds using: (1) electronic television meters (2) optical laser scanning of universal

product codes (UPC) at retail checkout (3) split-cable technology

24

Conclusions by rsc

• Ad copy must be distinctive• Ad weight without persuasiveness is

insufficient• The selling power of advertising wears

out over time• Advertising works quickly if it works at

all