Abstract:

Advertising testing should be an integral part of a successful brand management system. For this reason the continuous tracking of consumer attitudes in a product category is recommended. With computer-interview disks always in the field, the tracked sample serves as an ever-ready control for the rapid and accurate testing of ads, animatics and concepts. It also requires minimal levels of administration. A further possibility is that the tracking and test data can be modelled, providing a simulation facility for the reliable 'what-if testing of advertising concepts to ensure that the strategy is on target even before it enters the creative process and field testing. One outcome from this ad testing and the choice models that can be derived from them is that emotively-accurate reader profiles or segments can be determined that can be used convincingly by advertisers to market to appropriate advertisers, and even to select those advertisers that will best contribute to those aspects of the title's image that are attracting most new readers. Between the two techniques and following the principles of successful pretesting it is possible to both confidently show why and whether the advertising for a title is working, and also to provide cost-effective feedback to advertisers on how their ads are working