Abstract:

In 1991 The New York Times Company Women's Magazines released the Family Circle Study of Print Advertising Effectiveness. This was the first fruit of a joint effort begun two years earlier with Citicorp's POS Information Services Division, which had developed a unique and sizeable scanner generated database recording purchase behavior by household, and Simmons Market Research Bureau. The study used Citicorp's database to measure differences in actual purchase behavior between two groups of demographically matched households. The first group was known to have purchased, either through subscription or single copy sales, the April 21 1990 issue of Family Circle. The second group, though demographically matched to the first, was not known to have purchased the magazine. The study demonstrated a clear and marked relationship between magazine advertising and increases in sales of the advertised product. While definitive exposure to the advertising in Family Circle was the single variable in the study, the extent to which the Family Circle audience duplicates that of other magazine audiences is known from syndicated audience measurement. Hence we were able to calculate approximate magazine GRP's delivered to the two groups during the test period. On average, the test group received three times-the magazine weight as the control group, allowing us to fashion a compelling case for the use of effective magazine weight levels to impact product sales. As an outgrowth of the Family Circle Print Effectiveness Study, which looked at the short term effects of advertising on sales, we wanted to use the Citicorp database to look at the longer term effects of advertising schedules on sales. It is this study, The Family Circle Study of Schedule Impact, upon which this paper reports. This is actually the third in a series of studies undertaken jointly with Citicorp POS and Simmons. The second study, which essentially replicated the first, was completed earlier this year. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that the substantial volume effects of magazine advertising can be sustained over a prolonged period of time with continued magazine advertising