Answer:
The advertising research is an application of marketing research aimed at the measurement of advertising effectiveness. Advertising research is better defined by history and practice than anything else. Research comes into the advertising process at several points. Early in the process, it is sometimes used to help a marketer determine which segment of the market to target.
Marketing researches are generally conducted by the companies for their internal use. The help of marketing research firms may also be used for the benefit of the organisation, and for analysing complicated problem oriented marketing situations.
Methodology should be adopted for advertising research:
1. Product Appeal Research.
2. Advertising Message (Copy Testing) Research.
3. Advertising Media Selection Research.
4. Advertising Effectiveness Research.
1. Product Appeal Research:
The attitude of the target group towards a particular product or brand is of importance to study the consumer behaviour. This attitude is known as the Product Appeal.
Generally, there is a stability of a set of attitude towards salient features of a product. A consumer compares and evaluates a brand with this set of attitude, which is also known as “back group”. It is important to study these salient characteristics of a product and the perceptions of the consumer at different segments.
The product appeal is to be designed, considering the favourable factors of a product. It will be the task of the marketer to change the unfavourable image of target group towards the product or the brand presented, into a favourable one.
The features of a product should be highlighted cautiously, considering the attitudes of the consumers. The salient features of attraction may be different in different segments of market. An attempt should be made to reinforce the salient features in the product advertisement.
To illustrate the product appeal, we may take an example of a brand of toothpaste in a particular market segment. The product features of the toothpaste is to be highlighted, considering the market segment and the product should be positioned accordingly.
The ingredients or the features of the toothpaste may be as follows:
i. Teeth protection abilities,
ii. Teeth whitening qualities,
iii. Mouth freshening qualities,
iv. Gum protection potentialities.
If the first two features are considered the salient features in the particular market segment, the stress should be given on the first two features to generate the product appeal. The attitude towards the product should be generated, highlighting attractive characteristics of the product. The product appeal research is of importance to the advertiser to capture the market and to compete with the other brands of the competitors.
2. Advertising Message Research:
Message of the advertisement is of great importance to create an impact and to project the product in the market.
Consumers’ attitude and the effect of message may be identified and measured. The advertiser should locate salient characteristics of a particular market segment and should design the product appeal and the relevant message accordingly. Instead of critising the competitor’s brand, the advertiser should highlight the positive features of the brand advertised, through well directed message.
The techniques like depth interviews and projective tests may be conducted to estimate and measure the spontaneous and emotional responses. Various methods of testing techniques may be adopted to measure the effectiveness of the message.
The methods are as follows:
i. Copy testing
ii. Before test or Pre-testing
iii. Portfolio tests
iv. Consumer-jury tests
v. Rating scales
vi. Simulated sales tests
vii. Psychological tests
i. Copy testing – The purpose of this test is to appraise the degree of communication effect of the advertisement to the consumer. The motivation of the consumer to purchase the product is another objective of this test.
ii. Pre-testing – Before the advertisement is released for full run in a medium, these tests are conducted to make modifications or improvements.
iii. Portfolio tests – In this method a number of dummy advertisements are put in a folio along with the advertisement to be tested. The views and impression on the advertisement copies shown are collected from selective respondents.
iv. Consumer-jury tests – In this method a panel of jury is formed, comprising hypothetical consumers. The members of jury are asked to respond on the advertisement copy placed before them. They are requested to give their ratings on the same, starting with the best and coming down to the worst one. It tends to separate the very weak advertisement from the very strong advertisement.
v. Rating scale – It provides a list against which the advertisements are rated. It helps to single out good and bad elements of an advertisement.
vi. Simulated Sales Test – In this method, different advertisement copies are displayed at different stores. The volume of increase in sales will be considered as the indicator of effective advertisement.
vii. Psychological Tests – These tests undertake various research methodology like word association, sentence completion, depth interviewing etc.
3. Advertising Media Selection Research:
The decision making process in media selection is based on the following fundamental issues:
i. Choice of a particular medium or combination of media viz. T.V., radio or print.
ii. Selection of national, regional or local level media.
iii. The periodicity or the interval of the media use.
4. Advertising Effectiveness Research:
There can be various alternative strategies for varying degree of effects on the target audience. Different statistical models may be applied to measure the scale of effectiveness and generation of motivational attitude among the prospective consumers.
Various techniques for the measurement of advertisement effectiveness may be adopted like –
i. Coupon Research:
Coupon research may be conducted through mail order trading. To evoke inquiries, some special offers are made; the replies are analysed and the effectiveness of different publications are evaluated.
Experiments can be made with the relative pulling power of various publications at different regions. ‘Split run’ may be conducted to evaluate the relative appeal.
‘Reader Service’ of different magazines involves the readers. Necessary information are supplied by the advertisers, if required.
The audience response may be measured through –
a. Questionnaires Response:
The questionnaires are formed and sample procedures are generated to obtain records of media activity such as radio listening, television viewing, newspaper reading etc.
The objective of this method is to gather, wide variety of information with the help of well-designed questionnaire. It is economical and can be selected on the regional arid territorial basis.
Mechanical Device may also be installed to ascertain the acceptance of different media. The procedures and the methodology are more complicated, but the result can be obtained quickly in more unbiased fashion.
Personal Interview technique is time consuming and also expensive. The Recall Tests deal with asking the respondent what he can recall or remember about an advertisement. The recall is obtained, using both aided and unaided recall techniques. The respondents are asked to play back everything they can remember.
All responses are recorded verbatim. Another method known as Penetration, Comprehension, Recall, Believability method or P.C.R.B. Method which can be used to test whether the advertisement has penetrated in the mind of consumer. The Progressive tests method is used to measure the advertising effectiveness in terms of sales. These tests are designed to measure various stages of buyer awareness, preference, intention to purchase in relation to effectiveness of advertising.
The tests are simple and easy to execute and the advertisement effectiveness is measured immediately.
There are various other forms of Tests like – (a) Intend-to-buy tests, (b) Sales Result Tests, (c) Day after Recall Tests, (d) Recognition Tests etc.
b. Designing the Market Tests:
It involves several elements as follows:
(a) Selecting Test Markets on the basis of –
(i) The population size
(ii) Demographic composition
(iii) Competitiveness in the market
(iv) Media size
(b) Implementing and monitoring
(c) The duration of the tests
(d) The measurement and evaluation – Tests may be organised by implementing the – (i) Buying Income Method (ii) Sales Ratio Method (iii) Share of market method. The National Sales Estimates (N.S.E.) may be ascertained by adopting the following methods –
