The subject of today's talk gives me the opportunity to present to you the outline of a method which our advertising agency has been using for some months already. Considering the limits of time and also the subjects to be discussed today, I only intend to outline quite simply a method for pre-testing magazine advertisements mainly stressing the use of psychological attitude scales. Before embarking on our main theme, it may be useful to underline the advertising problems which we hoped to solve with our method.
The investigation of consumer penetration factors which can be said to be associated with advertising, and the buying of products, are familiar subjects. They are perhaps less familiar to us when studied in relation to advertising expenditure (which itself can be translated into exposure though not at this stage into actual impact) and actual sales: that is, in an integrated form. As an example of what we have in mind, we describe in Part II of this paper one kind of operation we have been conducting in connection with the investigation of these relationships. The case we have selected refers to the serial measurement of various advertising penetration characteristics associated with the growth of a new product.
The Delta Copy Test deals with a problem, which is bound to come up regularly in the process of creating a well-planned advertising campaign if the responsible team happens to have a clear understanding of the difference between the purchase proposition. The purchase proposition lays down in more abstract than concrete terms what the ads should communicate, which ideas on the product, the service, or the brand they should get across to the concerned public.The ad has to communicate in vivid concrete terms of text and illustration by ingenious transformation of the purchase proposition into the public's perspective.
We decided to improve the diagnostic and prognostic value of our copy tests and conducted a number of experiments which measured the effect of advertising in terms of changes of attitudes towards the advertising product or service. The Delta Copy Test has demonstrated that it is possible to isolate the measurable attitude changing effects of test advertisements by a properly designed experiment. Intensified exposure can help to measure sensitively the test advertisement influenced changes of attitudes towards the advertised product or service even within small samples. The test supplies a possible solution for obtaining comparable results for test advertisements of different media. It was clearly stated that the Delta Copy Test and - as we assume any other standard copy test - cannot be constructed to inform about both the attitude changes influenced and the attention value achieved, by a test ad.
'Telpex' research is a fast low-cost method of pre-testing tv advertisements, ideas for tv campaigns and and ideas for new products. The technique has been developed by the London Press Exchange Ltd. and has been used successfully for more than a year. 'Telpex' research depends on two elements: 1. Video-tape production facilities, for making video-tape roughs of commercials quickly and cheaply; 2. Consumer research studies.
Much of the advertising research being carried out today defines - whether explicitly or implicitly - the effectiveness of an advertisement in terms of memorability , believability or other factors. Such advertising research is based on assumptions that are not by any means proven and which are, in fact, generally false. Assumptions such as that an advertisement that is remembered, liked or believed is necessarily more effective than an advertisement that does not have a high memorability, believability or like-ability.
The distinction between operational research (OR) and market research is a clear one. The task of operational research is to predict and compare the outcomes of alternative management plans and decisions; the distinctive approach is to develop models which are representations in scientific, possibly mathematical terms, of the relevant factors and relationships of the system being managed. Often, but not always, a model is evaluated on a computer. Initially, such a model throws light on the effects of different management decisions; eventually with progressive refinement, il should predict them with more and more accuracy. On the other hand, the primary task of market research is to collect, summarise and sometimes interpret information about the world external to a marketing company - particularly data about the purchasers and potential purchasers of the company's products. Statistical analyses are sometimes made, but market research reports do not generally include the evaluation of alternative plans to assist the decision-making of management.
Satisfactory results that are obtained from good cooperation between advertising researchers and creative men are only possible if there are really congenial partners on either side who respect each other both professionally and personally. It is management's duty to select the right people for the right position. The development in industry automatically involves an increased risk in making investments in the market. We owe a very high degree of responsibility to those who entrust their money to our ideas. We are fully aware of this fact. And this is why we expect our ideas to be reasonably guided and that everything possible will be done to obtain a maximum degree of safety. But to guide ideas does not mean to put a brake to them. And there is no such thing as absolute safety. He who would be able to offer safety that is absolute would have deserved to handle all the advertising accounts in the world.
After lasting preliminary studies, since January 1962 the Research Institute of the "Schweizerische Gesellschaft fllr Marktforschung" is carrying out a periodical post-testing survey, the GfM-TREND. Thus, till now about 30 ,000 interviews have been done. The four most important Swiss magazines in German are canvased each month: Beobachter, PRO, Sie und Er, Schweizer Illustrierte Zeitung. In the most important cities of German-speaking Switzerland: Zurich, Basle, Berne, Lucerne and St. Gall, 200 women are interviewed for each magazine; the sample of each magazine being quoted according to the stratification of age and social classes of the periodical in question. The interviews take place before the next issue of the magazine has appeared. Only those women are interviewed who prove in a pre-test having read the issue to be tested. The interview will cover only one magazine, even if the interviewee should have read more than one of the four periodicals. The interviews aim to clarify: - How far are the articles of the editorial staff read; - How far are the advertisements noted; - How far are the advertisements identified; - How far are the copy and illustration of the noted advertisement seen; - Which image is the advertisement noted by: 1. degree of interest; 2. credibility of the message; 3. being tasteful. Identification and image were tested in a split-run by two different methods. In the following are shown the differences in the results due to the chosen method.
The title of this talk is "can a correlation of advertising to sales be demonstrated?" It will have some resemblance to the Edward Albee play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". That is, the title poses a question which the author has no intention of answering. Nevertheless, I suppose we wouldn't be assembled here today if most of us didn't believe that advertising is one of the most important influences in the sale of consumer products. But despite this conviction, market researchers have always been rather pessimistic about the possibility of demonstrating any continuous effect of advertising on sales, because of the complexity of the marketing mix.