AMITY SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Dr. ruhi lal

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•Research in Advertising is a specialized

form of marketing research conducted to
improve the efficiency of advertising.

•A subset of marketing research.

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Meaning
• Advertising research is the systematic
gathering and analysis of information to help
develop or evaluate advertising strategies, ads
and commercials, and media campaigns.
• A subset of marketing research.
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⚫ Research is - Finding out what you don’t

know.
⚫ Advertising works WELL when You KNOW
your Customer
CUSTOMER!
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KNOW your customer

1)The Target
Audience
2)Factors that
motivate Purchase
Behavior
3)Unique
Characteristics of
the Brand
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Target audience:
• Demographics: Psychographics: What
• What are the different motivates your prospects
observable to buy your
characteristics of your products and services?
buyers?
• What social groups What are their key needs
are they a part of? and challenges? These
• i.e. family lifecycle: might include
bachelor, married with characteristics such as
no children (DINKS: optimistic,
Double Income, No
Kids), full-nest or environmentalist, safety-
solitary survivor. conscious, value- oriented,
status-driven.
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Factors that Motivate Purchase

⚫ Motivation Behavior
⚫ Rank order

LOW CALORIES

CALCIUM CONTENT
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Brief from the Client

⚫ Firstly, an advertising agency receives a brief
from the client. It includes the following points:
⚫ The Objective
⚫ Product Details
⚫ Budget
⚫ Positioning
⚫ Geographical area to be covered
⚫ Market Size
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After the Brief

After the ad agency receives the brief the following
points are undertaken:
⚫ Analysis of Brief

⚫“Research”
⚫ Advertising & Message strategy
⚫ Creative Brief
⚫ Execution
⚫ Testing
⚫ Release
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The Research

⚫ The Research, here, is the systematic gathering and

analysis of information to help develop or evaluate
advertising strategies, ads and commercials, and
media campaigns
⚫ The research serves a number of purposes which can
be grouped into four categories.
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1.Advertising Strategy Research: It is used to

determine the product positioning, to assist in
selection of target market, advertising messages or
media vehicles
2.Creative Concept Research: It is used to assess
the extent of the target audience’s acceptance of
different creative ideas at the concept development
stage.
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3. Pre-testing: Pre- testing of ads is done to

diagnose any possible communication
problems before beginning an ad campaign
4. Post-testing: Post-testing of ads help advertisers
to evaluate the ad campaign results.
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Advertising Strategy Research

⚫ Advertising strategy Research is developed carefully

by blending elements of the creative mix.
⚫ The mix elements are : Target audience, product and
its positioning, communications media and
Advertising message element.
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⚫ To develop an effective “positioning strategy” for the brand, the

advertiser needs to know how consumers perceive their brands
and those of competitors’. They also need information on what
qualities, features or benefits associated with the product or
service lead to initial purchases and ultimately to brand loyalty
⚫ Communications media research helps develop media strategies
and select media vehicles from among different media class.
Advertisers undertake research to study and identify what the
consumer’s likes and dislikes are with respect to brands and
products and hope to find the big idea and develop promising ad
messages i.e which “message element” option is most likely to
prove successful.
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Creative Concept Research

⚫ Creative specialists prepare several tentative ad
concepts in the form of rough copy platform or the
storyboard. Researchers conduct focus groups in the
agency’s developmental lab to measure reactions
which are video-taped and observed by researchers.
This helps in identifying the most promising creative
concept among the ones that have been seen and
discussed by the focus groups
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Types of Advertising Research

Customized
Customized research is conducted for a specific client to address
that client’s needs. Only that client has access to the results
of the research.

Syndicated
Syndicated research is a single research study conducted by a
research company with its results available, for sale, to
multiple companies.
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Method of Advertising Research

Pre-market research
It can be conducted to optimize ads for any medium optimize
advertisement for any medium: radio, television, print
(magazine, newspaper or direct mail), outdoor billboard
(highway, bus, or train), or Internet.

Post-market research
It can be conducted after the advertising, either a single ad
or an entire multimedia campaign has been run in-market.
The focus is on what the advertising has done for the brand,
for example increasing brand awareness, trial, frequency of
purchasing.
 Pre testing or Copy
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Testing
Evaluation of alternative ways for advertisers to
present their messages.

“Copy” refers to an entire advertisement, including

the verbal message, pictures, colors, and
dramatizations, whether the advertisement
appears in print, on radio or television, or some
other medium.
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Pre-
Testing
⚫ Pre-testing is used to increase the likelihood of
creating the most effective advertising messages. This
helps in spotting any communication gaps or flaws in
the ad message content before it is used.
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Copy Testing
Consumer Jury.
Rating Scales.
Portfolio Tests.
Psychological Tests.
Physiological Tests.
Sales Tests.
Day-after recall Tests.
 Consumer Jury:
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 Oldest & simplest test.

 Personal interview may be used or a group may be
assembled & asked to vote on an alternative based on
their preferences, interests, or influences to buy the
 product .
Provides a “rating” given by a group of consumers who
 may represent potential buyers of the product.
Assumption: The respondent must like at least one
advertisement.
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Rating Scales:

Requires the establishment of standards for effective copy

and numerical weights for each standard.
Ads are then “rated” in accordance with the scale values and
a numerical score is obtained.

Advantage:
Provides a list against which to check an ad & helps to single
out the elements that are good or bad.

Disadvantages:
Different judges will rate the ad differently.
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Portfolio Tests:
Sometimes the ad is placed in dummy copies of
newspapers or magazines.
A group of ads, usually a mixture of test ads and
control ads, is placed in a portfolio.
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Physiological Tests:
• Tests are obtained using special
laboratory equipments which record
an individuals physiological responses
to ads.
• e.g.-Galvanic skin response, Eye
movement test, Pupillometer.
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Psychological Tests:

A list of reactions like self pity, security, fear or

nostalgia is set up.
Alternative ads are then rated on how readers
respond w.r.t. those reactions.
A no. of techniques including word association,
sentence completion, depth interview & story
telling are adopted.
Difficult to implement, since skilled interviewers are
required
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Sales tests
Sales tests are a useful measure of advertising
effectiveness when advertising is the dominant
element, or the only variable, in the company's
marketing plan.
Sales response may not be immediate and sales
tests, particularly field studies, are often costly
and time-consuming.
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Day-after recall Tests:

Research method that tests consumers‘

memories the day after they have seen an
ad, to assess the ad's effectiveness.
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Post-testing
Provide either periodic or continuous in-market research
monitoring a brand’s performance.
Including brand awareness, brand preference, product usage and
attitudes. Some post-testing approaches simply track changes
over time, while others use various methods to quantify the
specific changes produced by advertising—either the campaign as
a whole or by the different media utilized.
Overall, advertisers use post-testing to plan future advertising
campaigns, so the approaches that provide the most detailed
information on the accomplishments of the campaign are most
valued.
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Problems in media selection

•
It’s not sufficient to select the major media, you also
need to make specific selections within these
• general types of media.
Character of media has to be considered before
selecting it as it has great influence on effectiveness
of the advertisement.
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measurement
• Variation in composition and sizes of audience of
given media vehicle.
• Variation due to geography.
• Variation due to rate at which different vehicles
accumulate audiences.
• Difficulty of estimating value of different sizes of
message units within and between media.
• Estimating actual geographical area covered.
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Methods of Pre-
Testing
1.Print Advertising Direct Questioning: The
researcher using this method asks respondents
specific questions about the ads such as What does
the ad say to you? Does the ad tell you something
new and different about the product
2.Focus groups: A group of 8 to 10 people who are
potential users of the product or service, participate
in a moderated but freewheeling discussion and
interview. Lasts for about one hour and supervised
by a trained moderator who provides direction and
control.
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Contd.
3.Portfolio test: One group of respondents is
exposed to a portfolio of test ads interspersed with
other ads. Another group sees the portfolio
without the test ads.
4.Order of merit test: Respondents see two or
more alternative ads and arrange them in rank
order
5.Mock Magazine tests: Ads to be tested are
“stripped into” into a magazine which is left with
respondents for a specified time.
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Pre-testing for television and radio

⚫ Central Location test: Respondents see TV test
commercials in a central location such as shopping
centre.
⚫ Clutter tests: Test commercials along with non
competing commercials are shown to respondents.
⚫ Trailer Tests: respondents see commercials and trailers
at shopping centers and receive coupons for the
advertised products
⚫ Live telecast Tests: Test commercials are shown on
closed circuit or cable TV and subsequently respondents
are interviewed by telephone.
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Post-Testing

⚫ Post testing is important to evaluate the success or

otherwise of an individual ad or the whole campaign
after it has run.
⚫ It helps to analyze the mistakes, if any, & improve
upon them.
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Methods of Post-
Testing
⚫ Unaided Recall: respondents are asked without prompt
whether they read saw or heard ad messages.
⚫ Aided recall: Respondents are shown certain ads with the
name of the sponsor or brand concealed and then asked if
their previous exposure was through reading, viewing or
listening.
⚫ Day- after- recall – most popular method of post- testing
in broadcast media. Measure of effectiveness is always the
number of people who can recall the ad. Respondents may
be asked simple question as “While watching program last
night, did you see a commercial for (brand name) ?”
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⚫Recognition: It refers to whether a

respondent cam recognize an
advertisement as having seen before. Such
tests are conducted by mail survey in
which questionnaires are mailed to 1000
households picked from a mailing list or
telephone book. Provides mechanism for
breaking a print ad into important elements
such as headline, visual, copy and how
these are remembered by by a sample of
respondents.

⚫Inquiry: It refers to checking the

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INTERVIEWING should be A
LUXURY
• Gain insight
• One Page Questionnaire
• Pre-Test (6-8 respondents)
• Ask the Right People
• Be Thorough
• Control - Never let your respondents fill out the
questionnaires by themselves
• Direct questions - Direct answers.