Advertising Evaluation

Advertising Evaluation

The advertising programme should regularly evaluate both the communication impact and the sales effects of advertising. Measuring the communication effect of

copy testing an ad or copy testing tells whether the ad is communicating well. Copy testing Measuring the

can be done before or after an ad is printed or broadcast. There are three prin­ communication effect of

cipal methods of pretesting in advertising. The first is through direct rating, an advertisement before

where the advertiser exposes a consumer panel to alternative ads and asks them or after it is printed or

to rate the ads. These direct ratings indicate how well the ads gain attention and broadcast .

how they affect consumers. Although this is an imperfect measure of an ad's actual impact, a high rating indicates a potentially more effective ad. In port/olio tests, consumers view or listen to a portfolio of advertisements, taking as much

time as they need. They are then asked to recall all the ads and their content, aided or unaided by the interviewer. Their recall level indicates the ability of an

ad to stand out and for its message to be understood and remembered. Laboratory tests use equipment to measure consumers' physiological reactions to an ad, such as their heartbeat, blood pressure, pupil dilation and perspiration. These tests measure an ad's attention­getting power, but reveal very little about the overall impact on brand awareness, attitudes and brand preference of a completed adver­ tising campaign.

There are two popular methods of pout­testing ads. Using recall rests, the advertiser asks people who have been exposed to magazines or television programmes to recall everything they can about the advertisers and products

they saw. Recall scores indicate the ad's power to be noticed and retained. In recognition tests, the researcher asks readers of a given issue of, say, a magazine to point out what they recognize as having seen before. Recognition scores can be

used to assess the ad's impact in different market segments and to compare the company's ads with competitors' ads.

To identify the extent to which the campaign increased brand awareness, or affected brand comprehension, brand beliefs and preference or intentions to buy, the advertiser must, in the first instance, measure these levels before a campaign. It then draws a random sample of consumers after the campaign to assess the communication effects. If a company intended to increase brand awareness from

20 to 50 per cent, but succeeded only in increasing it to 30 per cent, then some­ thing is wrong: it is not spending enough, its ads are poor, its message is ill­ targeted, or some other factor is missing.

Figure 19.2 shows the levels of communication effect that advertisers are likely to monitor and measure with respect to a campaign:

# The change in brand awareness is determined by the number of customers who were previously unaware of the brand and the number who notice the

Importune Decisions in Advertising • 809

advertisement and are now aware of the brand, or by the difference in the number of customers who are aware that the brand exists before and alter the campaign. If there has been little increase or even a decline in brand awareness,

the advertiser has to determine whether the reason is the poor impact achieved by the communi cat ions campaign or that customers forget because of poor recall or inadequate advertising investment.

The nature of consumers' attitudes towards a brand can be ascertained before and after a campaign. An informative ad allows consumers to learn more about produet/brand benefits. If the message is poorly targeted, or

conveys an undesirable or unbelievable message, consumers are antipathetic towards the brand. They do not develop any liking for the product. Advertisers may have to redesign the copy to generate greater

interest among customers or improve message content in order to enhance the level of comprehension of brand benefits among target customers.

Consumers who are sympathetic towards advertised brand benefits would manifest their favourable response in the form of stated brand preference. Similarly, before­and­aftcr (the campaign) studies would enable changes in consumer brand preference to be determined. Reasons for brand rejection should be identified so that communication weaknesses can be redressed.

An advertising campaign may be used to turn preference among customers into more definite intention to buy. Again, this response can be measured and changes in the level of buying intent may be determined.

It is usually difficult to measure the sales effect of a campaign. Questions such as 'What sales are caused by an ad that increases brand awareness by

20 per cent and brand preference by 10 per cent?' are not easy to answer. Sales or trial arc affected by many factors besides advertising, such as product features, price and availability. One way to measure the sales effect of advertising is to compare past sales with past advertising expenditures. Another way is through experiments. For example, to test the effects of different advertising levels, Pizza Hut could vary the amount it spends on advertising in different market areas and measure the differences in resulting sales levels. It could spend the normal amount in one market area, half the normal amount in another area, and twice the normal amount in a third area. If the three market areas are similar, and if all other marketing

efforts in the area are the same, then the differences in sales in the three cities con!d be related to advertising level. More complex experiments could

be designed to include other variables, such as differences in the ads or media used.

If the customer is satisfied with the brand he or she has bought, this will lead to repeat purchase on another buying occasion. The extent to which advertising or a speeifie 'reminder' campaign affects repeat purchase is difficult to measure because of the difficulty of separating out the immediate and long­term effects of advertising. 'Before­and­after' type studies and controlled experiments can be used, nonetheless, to detect changes, in purchase and usage frequency. Again, advertisers should obtain consumer feedback to increase their understanding of the impact of communications on repeat purchase. Advertising may not be blamed for non­repeat sales due

to the nature of product consumption: for example, consumers get bored with the same product and want variety. In this ease, advertising is not powerful enough to arrest that desire. Few of us would relish the thought of surviving on an uninterrupted diet of Ilcinfc beans, Heinz soup and Heinz

sausages all year round!

810 • Chapter 19 Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotion and Public Relations

Organizing for Advertising

Different organizations handle advertising in different ways. In small and medium­si zed companies, advertising might be handled by someone in the sales or marketing department. Large companies might set up advertising departments whose job it is to set the advertising budget, work with the ad agency and handle dealer displays and other advertising not done by the agency. Most companies, small or large, tend to use outside advertising agencies because tbey offer several advantages;

• Agencies have specialists who can perform specialist functions (e.g. research, creative work) better than a company's own staff. • Agencies bring an outside point of view to solving a company's problems, together with years of experience from working with different clients and situations.

• Agencies have more buying power in media than the firm. They are also paid partly from media discount, which would cost the firm less.

There are disadvantages in relinquishing the advertising function to an outside agency: loss of total control of the advertising process, a reduction in flexi­ bility, conflicts arising when the agency dictates working practices, and client inability to exercise control or co­ordination. Despite the potential problems,

however, most firms find that they benefit from employing the specialized exper­ tise of agencies.

How does an advertising agency work? Advertising agencies were started in the mid­to­late 1800s by salespeople and brokers who worked for the media and received commission for selling advertising space to companies. As time passed, the salespeople began to help customers prepare their ads. Eventually they formed agencies and grew closer to the advertisers than to the media.

Some ad agencies are huge ­ Leo Burnett has annual billings (the value of advertising placed for clients) of more than §2.6 billion. In recent years, many agencies launched ;i series of mergers and takeovers to build global marketing companies. The largest of these 'agency mega­groups', WPP Group, includes

several large agencies ­ Ogilvy & Mather, J. Walter Thompson. Fallon McElligot and others ­ with combined billings approaching 825 billion.

Most large agencies have staff and resources to handle all phases of an ad campaign for their clients, from creating a marketing plan to developing campaigns and preparing, placing and evaluating ads. Agencies usually have four departments: creative, which develops and produces ads; media, which selects media and places ads; research, which studies audience characteristics and wants; and business, which handles the agency's business activities. Each account is Supervised by an account executive and people in each department are usually assigned to work on one or more accounts.

Ad agencies have traditionally been paid through commission and fees. Higher commissions are paid to the well­recognized agencies for their ability to place more advertisements in media. However, both avcrtisers and agencies are becoming more and more unhappy with the commission system. Larger adver­ tisers complain that they have to pay more for the same services received by smaller ones simply because they place more advertising. Advertisers also believe

that the commission system drives agencies away from low­cost media and short advertising campaigns. Agencies are unhappy because they perform extra

services for an account without getting more pay. As a result the trend is now

Intenmtianai Advertising • 811