Facing Today's Advertising Research Challenges

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ADVERTISING OUTLOOK RESEARCH

Facing today’s advertising research challenges

How strong research design can provide more actionable insight

Figure 1: How advertising works to build brands in the System 1 brain BY JERI SMITH CEO, Communicus

f all the O research questions faced by today’s Insights teams, one that should be very straight- ent ads that your consumer might Challenge No. 1: Sorting out the forward is actually one of the hardest. (or might not) have seen. You need changes that have been produced by The question: to know which ads worked. And advertising from the changes that are “What’s our advertising doing for since in the mind of the consumer a result of other factors our brand?” it all aggregates up to overall brand A good campaign shifts attitudes and Why is this question so diffi cult to impressions, examining one ad at a behaviors among those who’ve seen it. answer – or to answer well? Here’s why: time isn’t going to capture the way And if it’s a good campaign that’s well- the diff erent pieces work together to funded and well-placed a lot of people 1. There are many things that impact produce results. will see it. But even the best campaign your brand besides your ads. Think- 4. An ad that produces a bump in short- won’t be seen by everybody. And usu- ing that your ad-tracking study will term sales might not be the same ad ally, the brand begins to lose mental tell you how your advertising is that contributes to the brand’s long- availability and preference among working refl ects a highly advo-cen- term health. To help your brand grow those who aren’t seeing the brand’s tric view of the world. in the longer term, you owe it to the advertising. Brand tracking that doesn’t 2. Consumers can’t really tell you brand to ensure that your focus isn’t account for what’s happening among whether they’ve been infl uenced by solely on short-term sales. people who haven’t seen your campaign advertising or what caused them to will nearly always understate the true choose one brand over another. Much Okay, it’s hard. But it needs to be done. impact of advertising. of advertising’s impact takes place Here are some means by which To solve for this requires a test/ in the System 1 brain (Figure 1). Over these challenges can be overcome with control design. But anyone who’s tried time, with multiple exposures to mul- strong research designs. Here’s how you to run test/control market advertising tiple ads, the consumer might start to can become the hero who’s providing tests has discovered that there’s usu- think diff erently about the brand and correct, comprehensive answers to the ally so much noise in the data that it’s this might result in changes in brand question, “What’s our advertising do- nearly impossible to determine the lift attitudes or actions. ing for our brand?” and also providing produced by advertising. 3. If your brand’s advertising team has actionable insights into, “Which ads?” A better way is to use a longitudi- been riding the wave of new media and, “What could be done to make the nal design in which the same people platforms, there are lots of diff er- advertising work harder?” are interviewed before and after the

46 Quirk’s Marketing Research Review // January 2019 www.quirks.com SPONSORED CONTENT

Figure 2: Isolating Advertising Impact people based on what ads they’ve seen, we can create a true cross-platform measurement system. This enables us to understand not just whether advertis- ing worked but which ads worked. Further, with this comprehensive data set, we can develop an under- standing of the combination of ads and messages across platforms that had the greatest impact on the brand.

Challenge No. 4: Quantifying both short-term and long-term advertising impacts and creating a comprehensive advertising has appeared in-market as Challenge No. 3: Sorting out which understanding that encompasses both a kind of self-selecting test. Those who ads and which media platforms have In today’s world of quarterly earn- haven’t seen the campaign serve as the contributed ings reports and short-term CMOs, “control,” representing a proxy for what Consumers can’t tell you (at least not it’s hard to focus beyond the immedi- would have happened to the brand with- without help) what ads they’ve seen. In ate effectiveness of advertising. But out advertising. Examining the change theory, exposure-based (or opportunity if all that mattered was short-term over time among those who’ve seen the to see) systems can help. results, all ads would contain offers advertising versus the change that has But wait. We know that not all and deals. Thoughtful, responsible occurred among those who haven’t seen exposures result in attention being paid marketers understand that their the advertising can provide insights into to the ad. In fact, most ad exposures go campaign should also support brand what the campaign accomplished. completely unnoticed. So if you’re as- health. The trick is to balance the two Generally, those who haven’t seen suming someone “saw” an ad who actu- needs and for research that provides the advertising show declines (Figure ally didn’t, you’ll mis-categorize people insights into both. 2). Advertising often works to off set as “ad aware” who actually weren’t, Using the longitudinal design ap- these declines – this is the “defensive” confounding the ability to quantify the proach to examine change at the top of role of advertising. Even in cases impact of the campaign. the purchase funnel (awareness, overall where overall brand health is not in- We need a better way of fi gur- impressions) and then all the way down creasing over time, the campaign may ing out who’s seen ads and which ads through brand attitudes, then to pur- be working to keep the brand’s mental they’ve seen. For this, it turns out that chasing behavior and loyalty, enables availability from declining. appropriate memory triggers work re- the insights manager to quantify and ally well to identify those who’ve seen diagnose the success of the advertising Challenge No. 2: Figuring out how a particular ad in-market. When the at each stage and its ability to lead the consumers really feel about your memory triggers used match how the consumer down the path-to-purchase. brand and whether seeing ads has ad memories are stored for a particu- A campaign that only produces changed that lar type of ad, we can sort people into favorable impressions but fails to gener- People are good at telling you how they those who’ve seen ads versus those who ate short-term sales is bad but so is a feel right now. What they can’t tell haven’t with at least 90 percent confi - campaign that only generates short- you about is their motivations – why dence. These memory triggers, matched term sales but does not support brand they like a particular brand, whether a to how diff erent types of memories health. We owe it to the CMO to ensure particular ad persuaded them or what are stored, provide a media-agnostic that our research tells the full story, would persuade them to behave diff er- method for determining ad awareness. which cannot be done with sales data ently. So we can’t ask them about ad No longer are we tilting the scales in or attribution modeling alone. persuasion; rather, we need to observe favor of memories that are easier to ac- Answering the question, “What’s our ad persuasion using implicit means. cess, like recent TV spots, versus those advertising doing for our brand?” may The longitudinal design gives us a that are buried deeper, like the Pandora not be as hard as it seems. Thoughtful powerful way of doing that – observing spot you heard last month. Likewise, approaches to study design, proven how people have changed over time and we aren’t tipping the scales to favor ex- questioning and analytic methodolo- what types of changes are associated posure opportunities that are easier to gies, overlaid with a solid database and with having seen diff erent ad messages. capture, like online exposures, versus deep experience, can light the way. For this longitudinal design to exposure opportunities in media types www.communicus.com work, you need to fi gure out who’s seen that are more challenging to capture. [email protected] the ads. Not an easy task. With this ability to categorize 520-751-9000 www.quirks.com January 2019 // Quirk’s Marketing Research Review 47