This paper is in three parts, to be delivered in turn by the three speakers. First, we comment on the fact that the development of computing and of scanners has revolutionized both market and media research. We point out that the boundary between the two fields is becoming increasingly indistinct: market researchers are finding themselves more and more involved with media matters, and media researchers with marketing matters. To illustrate this, we describe two services of Nielsen Marketing Research (U.S.): the Scantrack store movement service based on retail scanning, and the Nielsen Household Panel which employs in-home scanners to record product purchasing: and we present two new practical applications of these research services which can contribute to the assessment of television advertising. The first application is experimental multimarket testing to assess the relative effectiveness of television plans, in terms of campaign testing, weight testing, or interactions with other media. The second application is a syndicated media/product service, newly introduced in the U.S., based on the Household Panel. This service, called HOME*SCAN, links product purchasing data on an aggregated (12 month) basis to media data collected from individual adult members of the Panel. Prospective television applications of the HOME*SCAN data are discussed.
In 1967 I gave a paper with the title "What do we know about how advertising works?" to an ESOMAR seminar on advertising research. That paper queried a number of assumptions about advertising which were then still prevalent: such as advertising as "converting" the consumer, step by step through a rational process leading from awareness to favourable attitudes to action, and the consumer as a passive receiver of information or as a learner. A more complex and human view based on modern research results in social psychology, and on experience of actual advertising research findings, was proposed instead. There seems little reason to change the basic conclusions of that paper of almost 25 years ago. However, much has changed over the period, affecting both the advertising environment, and available advertising research methods and data. Some recent thinking about advertising research and some important basic research results are reviewed in this paper, and summarized in the Conclusions section. The paper ends with a return to emphasis on fmcg advertising, and a discussion of short-term and long-term effects, with the suggestion that we can usefully think of two ways in which advertising works: in the short term, by enhancing the Presence of the brand; and in the long term, by enhancing its Presentation.
Mediamark Research Inc. has for almost 11 years operated in the United States a multimedia and marketing survey based on personal interviews. This service is the primary source for magazine readership estimates in the U.S., and an important secondary source of data for other media (broadcast and cable TV, radio, newspapers, and outdoor), and is used by almost all advertising agencies of any size for media planning and buying. A number of factors have caused Mediamark to investigate the potential for a multi-country service on the lines of the U.S. service, which would provide fully comparable data across a number of major markets. To that end, interviews were conducted with potential users of such a service, including especially the heads of media at international agencies and advertisers, the heads of international operations at international media companies, and the heads of research at national media companies in several countries. Based on this investigation, a Foundation Survey in five European countries is being proposed.
The paper shows clearly that previous advertising theories were too often based on unwarranted assumptions. It raises as questionable many points of view which previously seemed convincing. The emotional, reinforcing roles of advertising are emphasised in this paper. It is not all destructive, though ground-clearing is perhaps its main function.
What I plan to do is to speak rather narrowly to the subject which was - you recall - the cost of effectiveness of different media and in doing so, to touch upon each of the papers though not in any case at any great length, as that's really more for the open discussion I think. I shall be talking about experiences derived or known about in the United Kingdom and the United States only, partly because there is a wider media choice there in those two countries than in many other countries, and partly because that is where my experience lies.
I have been asked to describe to you a proposal recently published by Newsweek magazine in the U.S.A. which has been prepared by Axiom Market Research Bureau Inc.together with the British Market Research Bureau Ltd. in London. It was a study which attracted over time quite a lot of interest and attention, and I will start by summarising its results. They may be new to some of you. Others may like to be reminded of what it showed, and then I will describe briefly the United States proposal. Two points in general about it: It was based on a multi-media and product diary. Housewives in the London area, in Britain, kept a diary of their product purchasing and the media to which they were exposed day by day, and from this we had a record of their purchases over time and also a record of their advertising exposures, the opportunities to see advertisements in different media over time. The object of the exercise was to see whether there was or was not a relationship which would suggest a short-term effect of advertising.
I think seminars are of two kinds - there are those which confirm one's prejudices, and those which enable one to re-organize and rearrange one's prejudices, and I would say that this is certainly of the second kind - that I have rearranged all of my prejudices and dusted them up a little. Certainly, being serious, this seminar has made me think, and I have found it very valuable. I'd like today to speak under four headings, which I hope will do justice to most, though not all, of the topics that we've discussed. I'm not going to refer back to all of the papers in the seminar, by any means.
The subject of this paper is a comprehensive study which attempted to provide a basis for better understanding of the new housewife, and in particular, the interpersonal and impersonal forces which influence her attitudes andr behaviour. A sample of 1172 women aged 16-34 provided the nucleus for the study, and the opportunity to look at six different "life-cycle" groups of young women: unmarried girls who are unattached, those planning to get married, "new housewives" before the arrival of the first child, "new mothers" whose first child is under one year old, mothers of small children, and mothers of school-age children.
The question "how does advertising work?" seems to be raised more and more often in connection with research into advertising. There is increasing awareness that a number of advertising research methods in common use imply very different assumptions about the way advertising works. Rarely - if ever _ is evidence presented that the assumptions made are correct. Also, discussions of difficulties of communication which are experienced between creative and research people often seem to point to different assumptions about the functions of advertising made by the two sides concerned.
In this paper I have presented some of the first results of a systematic analysis of data which has been collected as part of a continuing survey to measure advertising communication. The results have been confined to measurements taken at a single point in time and to measures common to most fields. These are severe restrictions: the essence of the research is the measurement of movements, and the brand image questions, a most important part of it, are divided to fit the individual fields and so have not entered into the analysis. However, even the limited types of analysis illustrated here can help with decisions about communication targets.
The project described in this paper, which the British Market Research Bureau is carrying out on behalf of the J. Walter Thompson Company and its clients, is an attempt systematically to collect and interrelate a number of partial measures of the effectiveness of competitive advertising- campaigns. By studying these interrelationships continuously over time we hope to gain a greater insight into the way advertising works in particular product fields, and to provide information helpful in planning advertising strategy. The measures themselves are for the most part not particularly new, but the approach shows sufficient promise to Justify further experimentation. At the moment this paper should therefore be regarded as a progress report on a study which is still evolving. The section which follows discusses-further the nature of the problem confronting us. We then turn to a simplified model of the situation which serves as the basis for the research project, and explain how we expect to apply the research. Finally we describe a little more the mechanics of the operation and examples of the kinds of data which it yields, with a brief note on various problems which are encountered and developments which we foresee.