Learning From Winners: How the ARF Ogilvy Award Winners Use Market Research to Create Advertising Success by Raymond Pettit

Author:Raymond Pettit [Pettit, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-10-01T14:00:00+00:00

PRETESTING COPY

TV Ad Testing

Revisions to TV and print executions were submitted to further quantitative evaluation to assess their potential to attract attention, create brand linkage, deliver key sales messages, and motivate purchase. This is standard short of sales testing, however, the executions were based on two rounds of qualitative insight and intelligence generation. Now these ads were subjected to comparison with standard norms (as collected by IPSOS-ASI and Nielsen) to test their potential efficacy at creating recall, awareness, likeability, and persuasion in the marketplace.

ASI's Next*TV copy is a testing approach in which respondents are recruited via mail and given a packet of information that includes a taped video program. The program contains embedded TV ads, which consumers watch in their homes. Key measurement areas include: recall, attention, brand linkage, communications, likeability, persuasion, self-reported impact on brand attributes and perceptions, and commercial attribute ratings. An overall Copy Effect Index is computed as a proxy measure of potential sales effectiveness by combining recall and persuasion into one score. Executions were tested individually, in a 30-second animatic format. Animatics are low-cost picture or cartoon versions of the intended final ad used for assessment purposes only. In this case, as for most large domestic or global brands, the test was conducted on a nationally representative sample of 275 men and women aged 18–75.

Results of the Next*TV test indicated Dive and Slurp were the strongest executions (highest Copy Effect Index score), with Lion a solid third. All generated substantial “related recall” for the A.1. brand, with Lion and Dive best communicating the importance of A.1. for having a great steak experience. Slurp also generated high recall, but less focused on communication and average on persuasion. It still appeared to be a somewhat polarizing ad due to its potentially offensive elements. But its overall Copy Effect index was above the norm, thus leading the A.1. team to have confidence in its potential. Interestingly, the Stomp execution bit the dust at the ad-testing stage, probably because of its underlying linkage to the prior “steak loving” campaign as a main image, as opposed to the relevance and importance of A.1. sauce as the key element.

Just prior to the ads airing in April 2002, we tested two variations of the finished Lion spot to determine which was more compelling. Although fully finished TV ads are rarely pretested, given the costs associated with production, Ogilvy winners sometimes will further evaluate two or three different variations on a TV ad that can be shot cost effectively within production timelines and cost frames. In this case, Nielsen Media Research's Reel Research was employed.

Reel Research uses an online testing system to evaluate ad execution alternatives. Generally, test and control groups are exposed to ads in a finished 30-second format. Using online surveys, MPEGs can be embedded in the survey instrument to allow instantaneous viewing followed by standard assessment questions focused on the traditional areas of evaluation (as employed in the ASI copy test previously described).

Surprisingly, the A.1. team found that the research results for both variations were nearly identical.

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