Most of the approaches were instituted when a simple conversion theory of advertising effectiveness was generally accepted. We now, however, have a more sophisticated view of consumer behaviour, and are beginning to accept that advertising may have as big a role to play in reinforcing or intensifying existing behaviour as it does in creating "new" modes of behaviour. Does not all this imply that our chances of understanding how advertising works will be increased if we set ourselves the task of trying to understand the mechanics of consumer purchasing behaviour and work backwards from there, rather than concentrating on the advertising per se?
There is little sense in testing advertising efforts without having a theory about what advertising is supposed to do. It is equally without much sense to pretest advertisements (or elements that would go into advertisements like themes, artwork, slogans etc.) without assumptions about what post- testing of the same advertisements is supposed to show. And finally: theories that cannot be tested for proof or disproof are not very useful. It should also be realised that in most fields of scientific endeavour the theories have followed rather than preceded every day-life and observations of what went on in actual practice.
Year after year industry invests ever increasing amounts in advertising, in order to keep up with the great competitive struggle. The sums thus spent go into hundreds of millions. Advertising should and must create advantages in competition. That's what it is being conceived for. The advertiser expects advertising to produce concrete effects and tangible successes. And how do advertising effectiveness and success translate themselves to him ? Well, mainly and immediately in terms of increased sales and profits. But when it comes to optimising the advertising budget, mere thinking in terms of overall objectives can no longer be of great help. What's needed here is systematic analysing of what advertising can be expected to achieve, and how and to what extent its performance can directly or indirectly contribute to increase profits. And this is where advertising research comes in. A most serious handicap to advertising research is the fact that so far it is not altogether capable of scrutinising the basic possibilities of advertising effects either sufficiently broadly or profoundly enough or even systematically. Let's start out, in the first place, by going over the seven mortal sins in advertising research, one after the other.
The main object of this paper is to consider a number of different criteria which can apply when one is attempting to measure advertisements in terms of their effectiveness, and different ways of analysing data in terms of these criteria. In particular, this paper will demonstrate how one specific form of data collection, the pre-post-gift-choice question, can generate more than one type of measure dependent upon the criteria initially set up.
In market research we are all aware of the growing demand for better procedures for creating and testing effective advertising. Manufacturers not unnaturally wish for evidence that their expenditure on advertising will achieve maximum results. Agencies know that they are under pressure to produce creative work that is demonstrably competent. There is also a general impression that greater sophistication in media selection has not been matched in improved skills in the uses to which the media are put. The creative man, too, is fully conscious of the challenge; and he realises that he is expected to take advantage of the tools of market research. After all, the brief for creative work nowadays more often than not stems from basic research data, or at least from some attempt at a scientific assessment of the market. It is unusual for any major campaign to be adopted on faith alone. Campaign testing is on the increase. Creative intuition and flair is now officially supplemented by more systematic criteria. The task of producing more effective advertising is one which creative and research specialists jointly face. Collaboration between them, although already standard practice, has been uneasy and not altogether fruitful. This paper suggests a number of ways in which research specialists can help to overcome existing difficulties , in order to make the alliance between themselves and the creative team more productive.
I am concerned here with an attitude to pre-testing as much as a particular technique. Overall measures of advertisements are needed but it is in this area that the arguments arise. Incidentally, I shall be talking purely in terms of television advertising. Such overall measures are useful in the creation of advertising. When a particular advertisement is demonstrated as bad the account and creative groups no longer need spend their energies in arguing why it is a good advertisement. With or without the benefit of diagnostic material, ideas start flowing on how to improve or replace the advertisement. A system of pre-testing should be sensitive. That goes without saying - except that we don't always get it. Theatre gift choice change has proved rather insensitive for instant coffee advertisements in Britain. Sensitivity is essential. In setting up a new system I wanted sensitivity. On the other hand I was willing to "disconsider" validity. I don't want to actually go on record as saying that validity is not important - but too much concern with validity inhibits the development of techniques and their understanding.
What I would like to do is to suggest that ad pre-testing (or "copy-testing") techniques can be simplified considerably and their efficiency greatly improved by a reassessment of the role which the pre-test should play in improving the effectiveness of advertising. First of all, I would like to discuss the question of the role of the pre-test and then the question of suitable techniques.
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.
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.
There may be several reasons for this. Turnover in the advertising industry goes into thousands of millions and the production and placing of advertisements represents the biggest and, proportionately still increasing item in the total expenditure of the advertising industry. This is as true of Germany as it is of the U.S.A. The enormous costs which must be paid by advertisers are gradually producing a growing demand to check on advertising campaigns which have been launched with so much ingenuity, expense and optimism. It is typical of modern society that this demand is met increasingly by scientific valuations and forecasts. In the second place, it so happens that advertising mirrors many typical features of how people conduct themselves in our rapidly-changing industrial and consuming society. But since many people are emotionally estranged from modern society, the economics of advertising becomes the object of much, even if most frequently critical or even hostile interest. This is why opinions differ in any discussion of the significance, the psychological effectiveness and the social and economic functions of advertising in modern society.
For scientific elaboration of a media plan, planners have at their disposal audience surveys giving the numbers and characteristics of the readers, listeners or viewers. In order to optimize a media plan, information is necessary not only on the media per se but also on their specific effectiveness for the product class under consideration. The method of advertising control described here leads, in our opinion, to the answer - for a wide range of product classes - to two so far insoluble questions: - What is the optimal allocation between the various media?; - What are the optimal insertion frequencies for the various media media? The method calls for a 2 to 3 ,000 interview survey followed by extensive mathematical and statistical analysis.