Insights departments need to step up and take control of analytics to save the industry and their own business.
Measuring advertising effectiveness to an increasing extent has become a part of evaluating the integrated communications mix. Apart from mass advertising, activities such as promotion, outdoor sponsoring, direct marketing and above all new media have become much more important. The lines that used to separate advertising from disciplines such as design and fashion, have also become more blurred. For some people, however, the tensions between research and marketing communication have not completely disappeared. Questions still linger about whether todays researchers can succeed in convincing advertising specialists that they make a valuable contribution, and whether advertising research actually delivers what it should. As for the communications industry, how far does it continue to hide behind stereotyped positions, for instance that research is an obstacle to creativity, or that it is impossible to measure the real effects of commercial communications? In this issue of Research World we focus on the way in which advertisers and researchers work together. We speak with the persuaders to find out if they are satisfied with the services that researchers deliver. We look at the research contribution to ask: in which direction is the relationship heading - will it remain difficult or is that now changing?
Research in North and Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
Introduction to the Seminar 1982 on Profitable Cooperation of Manufacturers and Retailers, by Gottfried Thiel.
In this paper, we see the partnership in action. The case history is a simple one, some would say naive. No methodology is put forward from which we may benefit. The research was not formal: it consisted only of the team itself visiting sales outlets. The case history is worth inclusion because it communicates the enthusiasm which a small group can generate, it tells us of the uniformity of purpose and understanding which more ambitious projects sometimes lack.
The paper tells how a family orientated women's weekly, Hjemmet, widened its audience dramatically through a coordinated editorial/marketing effort. During a 5 year period after 1974 circulation almost doubled, without reducing sales of the main competitors. The writers explain the strategy which Hjemmet used to cope with its stagnant situation in 1974 including the evaluations and research results which led to this strategy. The paper also shows how a close cooperation between editorial and marketing people made possible a systematic product development without harming the editorial freedom. The communication results as well as circulation figures speak for themselves.
Newspapers and other periodicals are still an important part of the communications Industry today, and they make an immense contribution to the work of informing the masses, and thereby to the forming of opinions from adolescence on. It is therefore of primary importance that a freedom of "expression" should be made secure, as is indeed the case, I think, in the majority of industrialized countries . But once information is freely expressed in printed form, it must be placed just as freely at the disposal of the reader. Any citizen must be able to choose his or her reading matter in complete freedom. This implies some organization for the distribution and sale of periodicals, in the interest of maintaining that freedom. My subject today, - and my pleasure, - is to let you know of the French solution to this last problem. This solution originated right after the Second World War ... in 1947 to be exact! And for over 30 years, this solution has been providing satisfactory results both to publishers and to the public. We can say therefore that the system for distributing periodical publications in France is workable ... and, furthermore, it is economical!