Abstract:

We are living in a time in which consumers consider brands and products as more or less interchangeable. In this context, advertising offers a solution to marketing executives how to avoid this dilemma. It allows for instance to differentiate brands and products, to stand out against competitors and to develop a brand personality as well as an advertising property. But in many cases, advertising success means higher sales, that is, it influences consumer behaviour. Experimental micro-test-market systems, for instance BehaviorScan - are available. In order to measure actual consumer buying behaviour as a reaction to different marketing alternatives, including TV-advertising. These systems enable the decision-maker to vary the individual marketing components step by step, and thus to find out which strategies will later be successful on a national basis. This experimental work in the micro-test-market helps marketing executives to put together a complete picture of the effects of their marketing measures by combining different components. Advertising continues to be a decisive mainstay in the mix of marketing tools - and it is above all TV-advertising which occupies the most important rank. Therefore we are confronted with some decisive questions when thinking about the use of advertising - TV-advertising - in a test-market system.