Abstract:

A small-scale UK survey among leading advertisers and agencies to find out what research they conduct to evaluate their advertising campaigns is reported upon. The amount of such work was found to be surprisingly high but the amount of effort devoted to attempting to build generalisations was disappointedly low. Without such generalisations there can be no learning for the future. Developing this point, reference is made to an issue which is topical in the UK, namely the value of the low exposure to television campaigns received by Light Viewers. Material from two recently developed series of checks to evaluate campaigns is quoted to illustrate the potential of attempting to build generalisations, and also some of the dangers.