Evaluating IMC Effectiveness. Lecture Outline Why is it important to evaluate brand communication effectiveness? What role do campaign objectives

Evaluating IMC Effectiveness

Lecture Outline

Why is it important to evaluate brand communication effectiveness?

What role do campaign objectives play in the measurement of campaign success?

What are the key ways in which post-campaign evaluation is conducted?

What are some key challenges faced in evaluating IMC effectiveness?

Brand communication impact: did it work?

First things first: the campaign objectives

Typically, a brand communication campaign has multiple objectives.

For example, one (attitudinal) objective may be to change brand perceptions.

Another (behavioral) objective may be to make people engage in some way with the brand.


First things first: the campaign objectives

Regardless of the number of objectives, they must be established up front, because they provide the all-important framework for evaluating whether a campaign was a success.

Campaign objectives and evaluation work hand in hand. In the absence of solid campaign objectives, evaluation becomes a much murkier task.


The campaign purpose: brand building

Determining advertising’s impact on sales can be very difficult because of the impact of other environmental factors.

Sales are not the only reason brands advertise.

One of the major objectives of advertising is to create higher levels of brand awareness among consumers.


The campaign purpose: brand building

Marketers intend their messages to accomplish a variety of goals.

Brand communication can be deemed successful when set objectives—attitudinal, behavioral, or both—have been met.


Why evaluation matters

All campaigns require multiple, formal evaluation mechanisms.

These should be “planned in” to any campaign.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

The sheer costs of brand communication demand evaluation in order to judge its effectiveness.


How evaluation fits into the stages of brand communication testing

A complete understanding of the strength of your brand communication is accomplished through testing, monitoring and measurement.

The results of preliminary testing should be available before large sums of money are invested in finished work or media buys.

Evaluating the IMC message

How do we find out whether brand communication was effective?

How do we know whether the messaging worked?

Questions about impact are critical, and must be addressed.


Brand messaging impact is measured in terms of communication effects—the mental responses to a message that serve as surrogate measures for sales impact.

These can include:

Brand awareness

Knowledge of what a brand offers

Liking of a brand

Intent to purchase a brand


Experts in message evaluation

Many research companies specialize in measuring the various dimensions of effectiveness.

The most successful have conducted so many tests that they have developed norms for common product and service categories.

Norms allow planners to determine whether a message has performed above or below the category average in terms of “moving the needle.”

Message evaluation techniques

Tracking Studies

Conducted from the time a campaign is launched until after it has concluded.

Involves the collection of information from random samples of consumers who live in markets where they were exposed to a campaign.


Scanner analysis

Many retail outlets use scanners to tally purchases and collect consumer buying information.

Scanner research is also used to see what type of sales spikes are crated when certain ads and promotions are used in a given market.


Using single-source research, advertising and brand purchase data come from the same households, linking advertising to sales.

The result is single-source data because brand communication exposure and brand purchasing data come from the same household source.


Memory tests

In a recognition test, people are asked whether they remember having seen a message before.

In a recall test, respondents who have seen a message are asked to report what they remember from the ad about the brand.


Inquiry tests

These measure the number of responses to an advertisement or other form of brand communication.

Examples:

Calls to a toll-free number

An e-mail or website visit

A coupon return

A visit to a dealer

An entry in a contest

A call to a salesperson

Evaluating the performance of various IMC tools

IMC synergy exists when all campaign components work together to create a solid and understandable brand meaning.

The overarching campaign impact is strongest when the right mix of IMC tools is used.

Before overarching campaign synergy is measured, evaluation usually is conducted on a tool-by-tool basis.

Advertising

Advertising can accomplish objectives including increased brand awareness, improved brand image.

The tracking study is the most common post testing evaluation technique used to evaluate advertising.

Public Relations

Evaluation should be based on measurable objectives set at the beginning of campaign planning.

Practitioners typically track the impact of a public relations campaign in terms of successful output and outcome.

Consumer, trade and point-of-purchase promotions

Sales promotion managers need to evaluate the impact of consumer, retailer, and other promotions.

A payout analysis compares the costs of a promotion to the forecasted sales generated by the promotion.

A break-even analysis determines the point at which the total cost of a promotion exceeds the total revenues generated.


Direct marketing mechanisms are the easiest IMC tools to evaluate in terms of message efficiency and in terms of return on marketing investment.

The primary objective of direct-marketing communication is to drive a transaction or generate some other type of immediate behavioral response, such as a donation or visit to a dealer.


Evaluation of digital IMC components

Performance indicators include:

Page views

Click-through rates

Cost per lead

Conversion rate

Evaluating the performance of media vehicles

Advertising has little chance to be effective if no one sees it.

Key media questions:

Did the plan actually achieve reach and frequency objectives?

Did the newspaper and magazine placements run in positions expected and produce the intended GRP and CPM levels?

Did the advertisers get what they paid for?

Evaluating the performance of media vehicles

Media optimization

A major challenge in media planning is media efficiency—getting the most for the money invested.

Media planners operate with computer models of media optimization to make decisions about media selection, scheduling, and weights.

Evaluating exposure

Verifying audience measurement estimates is a challenge.

Services including Experian Simmons, Arbitron, MediaMark provide data.

Vehicle-by-vehicle evaluation

Out-of-home mediaFor outdoor, traffic counts don’t equal exposure.

Digital mediaEvaluation is complex. Analytic firms are developing more sophisticated evaluation programs.

Alternative mediaEven harder to measure; many obstacles remain.


Newspaper readership measurement

For newspapers and other traditional media, assessment is more straightforward.

Newspapers measure their audiences in two ways:

Circulation or number of subscribers

Readership or number of readers


Magazine readership measurement

Rates are based on the guaranteed circulation that a publisher promises to provide.

Magazine circulation is the number of copies of an issue sold, not the readership of the publication.

Magazines also offer advertisers figures for their total audience.


Measuring the broadcast audience

Coverage is similar to circulation for print media.

Ratings, as delivered by Arbitron, are re-visited post-campaign by marketers to ensure that the radio medium delivered.

For television, A. C. Nielsen data help advertisers understand the audience that a campaign actually delivered.

IMC campaign evaluation challenges

Measuring ROI

Advertisers continue to improve how they measure brand communication ROI.

How much spending is too much?

The best way to answer this question is to use test marketing.


The synergy problem

Another challenge with evaluating campaigns is estimating the impact of synergy.

The most common way of measuring total impact is the brand tracking approach.

Planners must consider other messages and contact points beyond the brand communication campaign.


Digital challenges

Marketers must start digital measurement planning with the desired business outcomes in mind.

Marketers must also develop the right digital key performance indicators.

Digital communication evaluation must be phrased so that broader business leaders can understand it.


International challenges

International brand communication is difficult to evaluate because of market differences.

Evaluation should focus initially on pretesting to help head off major problems due to unfamiliarity with:

Different cultures

Languages

Consumer behaviors

Bringing it all together

Advertisers continue to search for evaluation methods that bring all the individual metrics together to efficiently and effectively evaluate and predict brand communication effectiveness.

The ultimate goal is to arrive at holistic, cross-functional metrics that are relevant for integrated communication.

Many pieces are still missing in the evaluation of complex IMC programs.

Bibliography

Principles of Advertising & IMC by Tom Duncan 2nd Edition, Published by McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Event Management For Tourism, Cultural, Business and Sporting Events by Lynn Van Der Wagen Brenda R. Carlos Published by Pearson Prentice Hall.

Advertising Principles and Practice by W. Wells, S. Moriarty and J. Burnett, Published by Prentice Hall International.

Integrated Marketing Communications by David Pickton & Amanda Broderick Published by Prentice Hall.

The End:

“In matters of style, swim with the current;

in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

Documents

Evaluating IMC Effectiveness. Lecture Outline Why is it important to evaluate brand communication effectiveness? What role do campaign objectives