Abstract:

In the United Kingdom an annual Conference is held under the auspices of the Advertising Association, to which are federated Advertisers, Advertising Agencies and Media Houses through various trade associations. There were widely divergent views about subjects which would appeal in 1970. Hence research was undertaken. It was thought that simple rank order of preference for subjects could he misleading. Since the aim was to maximise interest of a broad segment of the advertising industry it might he necessary to cater for specialised minorities. Accordingly, the following steps were undertaken: 1. A primary target group was identified. To this group a mailed questionnaire was despatched, asking for ratings of Jk potential subjects for the Conference; 2. Returned questionnaires were analysed initially for the rank order of the topics. Certain clear preferences emerged; 3. Topics were then organised into a correlation matrix which showed relationships different from those anticipated. The data was thereafter subjected to further analysis. Four different approaches were employed: A. Factor analysis; B. Quadratic programming; C. A media schedule building programme; D. Empirical compilation of three potential programmes using the results of the factor analysis and the two previous scheduling results.