Advertising Research: Testing various types of Advertisements!

Research can be conducted to optimise advertisements for any medium: radio,

television, print (magazine, newspaper or direct mail), outdoor billboard
(highway, bus, or train), or Internet. Different methods would be applied to
gather the necessary data appropriately.
There are primarily two broad types of advertising research viz. Pre-testing and
Post-testing. Pretesting is testing the advertisement before running it so that the
likelihood of preparing most effective ads, by allowing an opportunity to detect
and eliminate weaknesses or flaws increases. Post-testing is done after the
advertisement is run on the media. This is more expensive and elaborate but
most realistic as well because the advertisements are tested in real life setting.
In another way of advertisement research can be classified into two types of
research, customised and syndicated. Customised research is conducted for a
specific client to address that clients needs. Only that client has access to the
results of the research. Syndicated research is a single research study conducted
by a research company with its results available, for sale, to multiple companies.
Pre-testing:
Pre-testing, also known as copy testing is a form of customised research that
predicts in-market performance of an ad, before it airs, by analysing audience
levels of attention, brand linkage, motivation, entertainment, and
communication, as well as breaking down the ads Flow of Attention and Flow of
Emotion. (Young) Pre-testing is also used on ads still in rough form e.g.,
animatics or ripomatics. Pretesting is also used to identify weak spots within an
ad to improve performance, to more effectively edit 60s to 30s or 30s to 15s,
to select images from the spot to use in an integrated campaigns print ad, to
pull out the key moments for use in ad tracking, and to identify branding
moments.
Pre-testing thus is undertaken to:
i. Establish whether the advert says what it was intended to
ii. Assess the likelihood of getting a response from the reader
Some of the commonly used Pre-tests are as follows
Pre-tests for Print Media Advertisements:
Consumer Jury Test:
Few consumers form a group and act as jury to show their preferences for one or
two ads out of several being considered. The jury members rank the ads and
respond to the questions like which was the most impressive ad or which ad
provoked you most to go ahead and buy the product or which ad did you notice
first and so on.

This test is conducted by two methods namely Order of Merit Rating and Paired
Comparison test. In the Order of merit rating test the jury the jurors rank the
advertisements as per their preference. The consensus emerges about the best
ad copy at the end. But the best may be the best amongst the worst ones.
In the paired comparison test at a time two ad copies are compared one-to-one.
Every single ad is compared with all others. Sources are recorded on cards. They
are summed up. The winner gets the highest score. This technique is easier than
order of merit. Till ten copies, there is good accuracy; which later decreases. The
number of comparisons one is required to make with the help of the following
formula:
n. (n-l) / 2
Where n= the number of ads to be rested.
Portfolio Test:
Along with the regular advertisements some dummy copies are kept in a folio.
Then the consumer-sample sees the folio. The consumer is then asked about
what he has seen in each ads. The ad giving minimum playback is considered
the best. But then it is necessary to observe whether the chosen advertisement
is dummy or regular. If found dummy the actual one is improved on the same
lines.
Mock Magazine Test:
Unlike the above method of keeping the advertisements in a folio, test ads are
introduced in a real magazine to an experimental group to read. The control
group is also exposed to the same magazine, but is without test ads. Later a
recall test is conducted to assess the effectiveness I test ads.
Direct Questioning:
A consumer jury is formed and either the whole ad or its different elements are
tested by asking direct questions. Sometimes there is one single question only
and sometimes an elaborate questionnaire is prepared to assess attention
strength, read-through strength, affective strength and behaviour strength of the
ad. For each component the copy is allotted some points. Each ad is rated from
the best to the worst.
Perceptual Meaning Studies (PMS):
In this method the respondent is exposed to test the ads for a limited time
period. Tachistoscope is an instrument that may be used in this test. After the
respondent sees the advertisement, he is subjected to a recall test for the
product, brand illustration and the main copy.
Pre-tests for Broadcast Media Advertisements:

All the above methods can be applied to broadcast media also. In addition, some
special methods are available to pre-test broadcast media ads TV and radio
ads. The techniques used are:
In Home Projection Tests:
A movie projector screen is installed at consumers home to show him the test
commercials. He is questioned before and after the exposure to the
advertisements. The questions are related to the ad and the change it causes
after exposure. The strong and weak points of the ads can be assessed.
Trailer Tests:
Two groups of customers are considered. Both are given discount coupons to
purchase the brand under consideration and are invited to shop in a real life
shopping environment, a departmental store, a shopping centre etc. The
prospects are invited to the display their products. Now one group is shown the
test ads whereas the other group is not. The redemption rate of coupons is
measured for both groups which may give an idea about the effectiveness of test
ads.
Theatre Test:
A group of people who could be a captive audience for an entertainment
programme is considered and a questionnaire is sent to them. The free tickets
are later sent to them for the programme where the test ads are run. On viewing
these, they are asked to fill up another questionnaire. It assesses product, brand
and its theme.
Live Telecast Test:
The advertisements are put on air either by narrow casting or live telecasting.
These ads are test ads, and not the regular ads. Later, viewers are interviewed to
know their reactions.
Some Other Pre-Testing Techniques:
Sales Experiment:
Before a product advertisement is launched nationally, a small ad campaign of
one or more advertisements is run. Two or more test centres are selected to do
so. The ads are run for a fixed period say one to four months and then the sales
responses are noted. It is a very useful and effective measure for FMCG items
and those ads who aim to motivate buyers to take an immediate sales action.
Direct Mail Tests:
A group of prospects are selected from the mailing list randomly and are sent
different test ads. Then to measure the response, the orders against each lot are
noted.
Physiological Testing:

In this test, rather than what respondents say, what is considered more
important is the physiological reaction of the respondents. Three principal
instruments to do so are:
Eye Movement Camera:
It measures how the eye moves over the layout of test ads. The route taken by
the eye and also the pauses are noted so that the areas of interest and attention
can be judged.
Galvanometer:
It measures skin responses to ad stimuli like perspiration by gland activity
through palm. More perspiration decreases the resistance and faster current
passes. The tension is generated. The greater it is, the more effective the ad is.
The technique is of limited use for ads of a very sensitive nature.
Perceptoscope or Pupilometric Devices:
They record changes in pupils dilatation. Dilatation indicates reading and
attention. Contraction shows dislike of the respondent to what is being read. It
evaluates interesting appealing visual stimuli. It is developed by Eekhard Hess
and James Polk. Left eye is photographed to record dilatation.
Pre Testing is also called copy testing by some experts. Copy testing is a
specialised field of marketing research, it is the study of television commercials
prior to airing them. Although also known as copy testing, pre-testing is
considered the more accurate, modern name (Young) for the prediction of how
effectively an ad will perform, based on the analysis of feedback gathered from
the target audience. Each test will either qualify the ad as strong enough to meet
company action standards for airing or identify opportunities to improve the
performance of the ad through editing. (Young)
We saw various tests which are all pretests. Following is another classification of
pretest or copy tests. There are four general themes woven into the last century
of copy testing.
Report Card Measures:
The first theme is the quest for a valid, single-number statistic to capture the
overall performance of the advertising creative. This search has spawned the
creation of various report card measures. These measures are used to filter
commercial executions and help management make the go/no go decision about
which ads to air. (Young). The predominant copy testing measure of the 1950s
and 1960s, Day-After Recall (DAR) was interpreted to measure an ads ability to
break through' into the mind of the consumer and register a message from the
brand in long-term memory. Once this measure was adopted by Procter and
Gamble, it became a research staple.
But every thing was not that bright about these tests. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s,
tests were conducted to validate a link between the recall score and actual sales.

For example, Procter and Gamble reviewed 10 years worth of split-cable tests
(100 total) and found no significant relationship between recall scores and sales.
(Young) In addition, Wharton Universitys marketing guru Leonard Lodish
conducted an even more extensive review of test market results and also failed
to find a relationship between recall and sales. Harold Ross of Mapes & Ross
found that persuasion was a better predictor of sales than recall.
Diagnostic Measures:
The second theme is the development of diagnostic copy testing, the main
purpose of which is optimisation. Understanding why diagnostic measures such
as attention, brand linkage, and motivation are high or low can help advertisers
identify creative opportunities to improve executions. (Young)
But then again this method was not perfect. Different approaches have been
developed by research companies to determine the report card measures of
attention, brand linkage, and motivation. For example, Unilever analysed a
database of commercials triple-tested using the three leading approaches to
the measure of branding (Ameritest, ASI, and Millward Brown) which shows that
each of the three is measuring something uncorrelated with, and therefore
different from, the other two. (Kastenholtz, Kerr & Young).
Non-Verbal Measures:
The third theme is the development of non-verbal measures in response to the
belief of many advertising professionals that much of a commercials effects
e.g. the emotional impact may be difficult for respondents to put into words or
scale on verbal rating statements. In fact, many believe the commercials effects
may be operating below the level of consciousness. (Young) According to
researcher Chuck Young, There is something in the lovely sounds of our favorite
music that we cannot verbalize and it moves us in ways we cannot express.
(Young, p.22)
Moment-by-Moment Measures:
The fourth theme, which is a variation on the previous two, is the development of
moment-by- moment measures to describe the internal dynamic structure of the
viewers experience of the commercial, as a diagnostic counterpoint to the
various gestalt measures of commercial performance or predicted impact.
(Young)
In the early 1980s, the shift in analytical perspective from thinking of a
commercial as the fundamental unit of measurement to be rated in its entirety,
to thinking of it as a structured flow of experience, gave rise to experimentation
with moment-by-moment systems. The most popular of these was the dial-ameter response which required respondents to turn a meter, in degrees, toward
one end of a scale or another to reflect their opinion of what was 011 screen at
that moment.

But then the things were not that easy. Unless the dial-a-meter is calibrated by
normalising the data to each individuals reaction time, the aggregate sample
data will be spread across many measurement intervals. Second, dial-a-meters
contain an uncertainty range around which moment is actually being measured
because of differences in respondent response times. Relatively little has been
published to validate dial-a-meter diagnostics to traditional measures of overall
ad performance such as recall and persuasion.
Post-Testing:
Post-testing or Ad tracking, as otherwise known, can be customised or
syndicated. Tracking studies provide either periodic or continuous in-market
research monitoring a brands performance, including brand awareness, brand
preference, product usage and attitudes. Advertising tracking can be done by
telephone interviews or online interviewswith the two approaches producing
fundamentally different measures of consumer memories of advertising, recall
versus recognition.
Purpose of Post Testing:
The purpose of ad tracking is generally to provide a measure of the combined
effect of the media weight or spending level, the effectiveness of the media buy
or targeting, and the quality of the advertising executions or creative. Some
newer forms of online tracking, separate the issues of the quality of the creative
component from the quality of the media buy and instead focus on the relative
performance of ads versus the competitive ads that are airing at the same time.
All forms of tracking data are used to provide inputs to Marketing Mix Models
which marketing science statisticians build to estimate advertising return on
investment (ROI).
Some ad tracking studies are conducted by telephone while others are
conducted on the Internet. The two approaches produce very different measures
of advertising awareness because the interviews tap into consumer memories of
advertising using fundamentally different measures, recall versus recognition.
For example, with an Internet study, the respondent can be shown a few
memorable, de-branded still images from the TV ad or a de-branded version of a
print or Internet ad and then answer three significant questions:
i. Do you recognise this ad? (Recognition measure)
ii. Please type in the sponsor of this ad. (Unaided awareness measure)
iii. Please choose from the following list, the sponsor of this ad. (Aided awareness
measure)
A telephone survey does not allow for visuals. Verbal descriptions are very
difficult to provide for a campaign that has several ads featuring the same
character(s) in the same situation with only slight changes. Telephone is not
considered a flexible enough methodology to be used in all situations.

Penetration Tests:
Daniel Starch had given the details of this test for the first time in his book
Principles of Advertising (Chicago- A W Shaw, 1923). These tests are also known
as Recognition/Readership Viewership tests. They are aided recall tests dating
back to 1923. Since then they have been conducted in the US by the Daniel
Starch Organisation. Here, the respondents are shown the issues of magazines
they claim to have read. They are asked to recognise the ads, asked whether
they have read them. The results are put into three categories:
(i) Noted (N): A person who only remembers having seen the ad in the issue
under study
(ii) Seen-Associated (A). A person who not only remembers seeing it but also
claims to have seen or read some part of it. He may even associate the ad with
the product or advertiser
(iii) Read-Most (RM). The person who has read half or more of the written
material in the ad.
The above categories of readers are expressed in percentage terms. This method
is also adaptable to broadcast ads where commercial advertisements on tape are
played. McGown (1979) gave the following formula to calculate Readers per
Dollar:
Readers peere Dollar = Percent noted X Magazins primary readers / Space cost
in Dollar
This method however is not error free. This method is always subject to reporting
errors by the respondents. They might deliberately exaggerate or at times
unknowingly suppress information. At times they guess answers to please the
interviewer and hide the fact that he or she has not seen the advertisements.
There are however some methods as follows which might increase the efficiency
of measurement.
i. The tachistoscopic method: Advertisements are shown to the respondent,
either whole or part, at high speed; and then they are asked to furnish
information based on those ads.
ii. The screen method: Several screens are put over an ad which are then
removed one by one an recognition is obtaited at various levels of visibility.
iii. Two more methods often used by researchers are Pre-publication control
which requires a recognition survey of previously unpublished advertisements
and confusion contra methods where some unpublished advertisements are
mixed up with some published ones and then recall is measured.
Gallup-Robinson Impact Test:

Gallup- Robison is a commercial research firm which has formulated standardised

aided recall tests to survey advertisement impact. A respondent is shown a
magazine cover and is asked whether s/ he has read the issue. If yes, then s/he is
asked to describe anything s/he remembers seeing in that issue. S/he is then
given a deck of cards with brand names on them which appeared on the issue
and is asked to indicate which ones s/he remembers seeing in the issue.
Recognition Vs Aided Recall:
i. In the aided recall method, the test issue is kept closed, and the respondent is
required to answer, entirely on the basis of his memory, whereas in the
recognition method, respondents first qualify as readers of a particular issue.
ii. The aided-recall method has a more exacting requirement; in effect, it
eliminates many persons of less desirable characteristics from the audience
which is not the case with the other one.
iii. Studies in USA have revealed that the recognition method gives an average
advertisement score that is six times the average PNR score.
iv. The aided-recall advertisement readers are younger, and have a lower
educational, occupational and income status.
v. A Printed Advertising Rating Methods (PARM) study has concluded that the
aided-recall method gives much lower ratings, which are sensitive to such
methodological factors as the lapse of time before the interview, the competence
of the interviewers and the type of the sample.
Unaided Recall Tests:
This is a kind of recall test where the respondents are not given any clue to recall
the ad. This proves to be more demanding than the aided recall, as respondents
recalling the brands without help shows a greater degree of penetration of the
ad.
Types of Unaided Recall:
Day-After- Recall (DAR):
One day after the advertisement appears the readers or viewers are questioned
after that.
Total Prime Time (TPT):
Here the main item of research is viewers television viewing time.
Triple-Association Test (TAT):
This test measures how much a viewer or reader has learnt about the brand from
the advertisement. The respondent is told about some product feature or benefit
and he is to find the brand name for that. For example if a respondent is asked
that which toothpaste ad shows that it has salt in it and the respondent says

Colgate active salt we understand that the learning objective of the

advertisement is successful.
Progress Tests:
These tests assess the total sales effect from the ad and hence is also called
sales effect test. In other words, the various stages through which a customer
passes and finally purchases are because of the advertisement or not is
analysed. Though the increase of sales due to advertisement is slightly difficult
to be measured, yet we have the following established methods
The Netapps Method:
Netapps stands for Net-Ad-Produced-Purchases. Daniel Starch and Staff Company
developed this method. It takes a sample population of which some have read or
viewed the advertisement and others have not. In each group those who did and
did not purchase the brand under investigation are found and analysed as to
what percentage bought under the influence of the advertisement.
Intend-to-buy Test:
The readers or viewers of the advertisement are asked about their intention to
buy. For positive responses further investigations are done to find the strong
influences in the advertisement because of which they decide to buy.
Sales Result Tests:
Following are some of sales results tests which measure the additional sales
generated by the ads.
Past Sales before and after the ad are recorded and the difference is accounted
for as an impact of advertisement.
An audit may be run on the dealers inventory before and after the
advertisement.
Enquiry Tests:
Some consumer durables companies issue coupons as a part of the
advertisement copy and when they are circulated to the customers, they are
supposed to fill it up and send it back to the company. So when the customers
are filling in the coupons they are seeing the ad copy as well. So from the
number of coupons received estimation can be made as to the number of the
readership of the advertisement.
Attitude Tests:
The change in attitude of the customers after the advertisement campaign is
measured and marketers observe whether there has been any change in the
customers attitude towards the brand under investigation. Further they assume
that a positive attitude towards their brand may lead to further purchases.

Generally the attitude is measured by rating it on a scales like Likert Scale,

Thurstone scale, Differential Scale, Guttman Scale etc.
Thus like any other aspect of market research, advertising research also aims
towards the investigation of various real facts from the market. It attempts to
measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the communication efforts of the
organisations. On these evaluations, many important strategic communication
decisions depend. Hence it proves to be a very important area as today the
organisations know that apart from the sales figures, brand image and goodwill
are also very important which depends a lot on the advertising efforts.
PRE-TESTING
This refers to testing the campaign before it has run. The purpose of pretesting
is to detect weaknesses or flaws in the campaign that may result in
consumer indifference or negative response. This increases the likelihood of
preparing the most effective advertising message. All the areas of
advertising like-markets, motives, messages, media, budgets and scheduling
may be tested.
It may be done to test two types of effects: communication effects and sales
effects.
Pre-testing of advertising effects seeks to determine whether
advertising objectives such as awareness, recall, attitudes and opinions,
beliefs about the product and intentions to buy, have been achieved.
Pretesting of sales effects seeks to determine whether a proposed message
or media plan has resulted in increased sales. This type of pretesting
identifies and isolates the influence of advertising on sales. A number of
more advanced techniques are used for pretesting both communication
effects and sales effects, both in the print and broadcast media. This
brings us to the question how campaigns should be tested.
Given that most advertising is assigned the task of achieving
specific communication goals, a number of methods have been developed for
pretesting these communication effects. These may be broadly grouped
under three categories:
Opinion and attitude tests
Mechanical laboratory methods and
Projective techniques.
OPINION AND ATTITUDE TESTS
1. Direct Questioning: This is a method designed to obtain a full range of
responses o the advertising, by asking direct questions about the
advertising. Based on the responses, researchers can infer how well the
advertising messages convey the key copy points.

2. Focus Groups: This is another commonly used method to pretest print

ads at both the conceptual and finished stage. It is a free- wheeling
discussion conducted among small groups of people and led by a
moderator. The group may be interviewed on their reactions to
advertising concepts or finished campaigns. The advantage of this
method is that it is an inexpensive and quick way of obtaining insights into the
advertising process. Focus groups are used extensively by Indian advertisers.
3. Dummy advertising media vehicles: This is a technique that can be
applied to both print and broadcasting ads. It involves placing the test ads
in a dummy vehicle, which resembles the actual advertising medium. In
case of television commercials, the effectiveness of these may be tested
by showing respondents an actual television programme, with the test
commercials placed within it. Questions are then asked to measure the extent
on which people recalled the test commercials.
4. Order-of-merit test: this is used mainly for pretesting print ads in finished
form. A group of people are shown a series of advertisements,
sometimes as many as six or seven, and asked to place them in rank order,
based on some communication criterion, such as liking:. After all the ads have
been ranked, a composite score is obtained. This score shows which ad was
ranked no.1, no.2, and so on.
5. Paired comparisons: This is used when more than six or seven ads have to
be rank ordered. Consumers are then asked to judge two ads at a time, and
asked to choose which one is better. The process continues until each
advertisement has been paired with each of the others.
6. Central Location Projection Tests: This is used for pretesting
broadcast advertising. Test commercials are shown to a group of respondents
along with other commercials, at a central location. Questions are asked
before and after exposure to determine whether the commercials have
been successful in gaining attention, increasing brand awareness and
comprehension, and shifting attitudes.
7. Live Telecast tests: Here, test commercials are shown on closed- circuit
or cable television. Respondents are then interviewed on the phone to test their
reactions.
8. Attitude Ratings: In an earlier section, we defined attitudes as liking
or dislike for a brand. Similarly, people may also form positive or negative
attitudes towards ads. It is possible to measure attitudes towards ads using
quantitative research techniques such as attitude rating scales.

The most commonly used type of attitude rating scale is the

semantic differential. Under this method, respondents are asked to indicate
on a seven point scale, their liking for an ad, on various dimensions.

MECHANICAL LABORATORY TESTS

These are commonly used in US and other developed countries. These include:
1. The tachistoscope: It is used to measure consumer perceptions to ads.
Using this device, the researcher can tell how long it takes for respondents to
get the intended message and how they perceive it.
This way two alternative layouts may
effectiveness.

be tested for their

2. The eye camera photographs the movement of peoples eyes while

reading ads.
3. The psychogalvanometer is a device similar to lie-detector. It records
skin temperatures and tension resulting from reading ads. The theory behind
this concept is that the more tension an ad creates, the more successful it
is likely to be.
4. The pupillometer is a device that measures a persons pupil size when
exposed to visual stimuli such as ads. The theory behind it is that the size of
the pupil increases when the person finds the ad visually interesting or
emotionally appalling.

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
It is a type of qualitative or motivational research adapted from clinical
psychology. It permits the respondents to direct questioning, projective
techniques permits respondents to indirectly project their views or feelings about
the advertising situation. The following types of projective techniques are used:
1. Depth interviews: Here, respondents are shown advertising material and
promoted to discuss it freely. A trained interviewer, usually a psychologist,
probes the respondent about his underlying feelings and motivations.
2. Word Association and Sentence Completion Tests: These are a little
more structured than the depth interview. Key words or sentences are
used as stimuli, to which the respondent replies by projecting his
thoughts. These words and sentences are taken from ads being tested.
This way, the researcher can determine what they mean to the consumers.
3. Thematic Apperception Tests: In this method, pictures of people in
ambiguous situations are shown to respondents. Respondents are asked to build
a story around these pictures, by projecting their opinions and feelings into
the story.

The problem with using projective techniques to measure

advertising effectiveness is the expenses involved, including the
cost of training interviewers to evoke useful responses from
respondents.

Post-testing
The evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of an advertising campaign either during or after the campaign's
run.
Post testing answers a wider range of questions, more specified, and generally inexpensive.
Post testing calculates how advertising performed.
It examines whether the conditions of introduction and purchase are genuine, not imitated.
This makes post testing basically more accurate, simple and less expensive.
Recognition-based post testing allows a wider range of questions to be answered.

Post-testing Methods :
These tests are conducted after running the ad campaign. The basic purpose of post-testing is to
provide an insight into the performance of ad campaigns & draw some conclusions from it about
the future conducting of advertisements.
The various post-testing methods are:

Inquiry & Coupon response:

In the enquiry method the reader is offered something in return for his inquiry letter. This is
called inquiry testing.
In the coupons response method, the person sending the coupon has to supply certain
information to the advertiser.

Readership survey Test:

In this method a group of selected respondents are asked to indentify advertisements they have
seen in the publications they read. They are asked to classify the ads as noted, seen, and
associated & readmost.

Recall Tests:

In this test a group of respondents who have seen the newspaper or magazine where the
advertisement had appeared is selected. A few questions are asked on order to verify the
respondent & have gone through the advertisement.

Attitude Measurement Test Method:

In this test method attempts to find out the effectiveness of an advertisement, in the light of
consumers evaluation of the company & its brands of product. It is presumed hat when
attitudes are favorable, the demand for the product is generated & the consumers are likely to
buy the product & vice versa.

Sales Test Method:

In order to find out the effectiveness of the ad campaign, the increase in sales in both the cities
will be collected & studies. The increase in sales of a product will indicate the success of the
campaign. In case there is decline in the sales or if the sales do not increase, it indicates that the
campaign has failed.

Campaign evaluation after the release of the ads is known as posttesting.

It is done with the specific purpose of evaluating a campaign against
pre-determined objectives- awareness, attitude change or increase in sales.
Many
of the areas of advertising that are pretested can also be posttested like media,
message and markets.
The post testing methods for communication effects of advertising fall into two
broad categories:
1. RECALL TESTS
this may be in the nature of aided recall tests or unaided recall tests. Aided
recall tests measure whether respondents recognize a particular ad. They are
shown certain ads and then asked questions to determine whether their previous
exposure to the ad was through reading, viewing or listening.
Recall tests indicate whether consumers got the point of the advertisers
message.
They are very useful in determining whether ads are being read and how well
they are working, compared with the competitors ads. They can also yield
useful data on the relative effectiveness of different advertising components,
such as size, colour or attention-getting themes.
The disadvantage of recall tests is that they indicate only the readership of the
ads. This does not necessarily mean product sales. An ad may be remembered
for itself, while the brand name may not be remembered. Recall is also subject to
the variations of individual memory. Therefore they are at best only a short-term
measure of advertising effectiveness.
2. ATTITUDE TESTS
Tests that measure shifts in attitudes are generally a better measure of
effectiveness than recall tests, because attitudes relate more closely to the
purchase of a product. A positive attitude is an indication of an intention to buy
the product, and vice versa. A variety of measurement techniques like constant

sum, Likert scale, Semantic differentials are used.

The advantage of attitude tests is that they are easy to conduct and low in cost,
because they can be done via phone or mail. The difficulty lies in coming up with
a
proper definition of attitude, which represents a complex mix of feelings. Many
people also find it difficult to express their attitudes. Also, attitudes are resistant
to change even by highly aggressive advertising efforts.
3. INQUIRY TESTS
They measure interest in and desire for a product.
The two broad categories of posttesting methods available to test the sales
effectiveness of advertising are:
Measurement of post sales: This method consists in comparing past sales
with the current sales.
Experimental designs: This method overcomes some of the problems of
sales tests by eliminating the influence of all variables that influence sales,
except advertising. One way to use an experimental design would be to
test which level of advertising expenditure produces the best sales level.
In addition, it can also be used to test alternative media mixes, creative
approach and the timing or frequency of ads. It is best suited for products
that are purchased frequently and advertising is the major factor in the
marketing mix.
The consumers emotional response to an ad is also considered a measure of
effectiveness. A special quantitative technique for measuring such responses
has been developed in US by Leo Burnett advertising agency, known as
Viewers Response Profile. It consists of a series of 52 different statements
about the ad or commercial, with which respondents are asked to agree or
disagree. These statements measure emotional response along seven different
dimensions: entertainment, confusion relevant news, brand reinforcement,
empathy, familiarity and alienation.
This technique can be used for both pretesting and posttesting of TV
commercials as well as print ads. It is based on what people feel after
watching ads, rather than what they know.
Although advertising is still in its infancy stage in India, its importance is
bound to grow in future. The account planning function; still a relatively
new concept in India will assume greater importance, as it is the integration
of research with campaign planning. The account planner will be responsible
for conducting advertising research, as well as taking strategic decisions
about the campaign.