17

MEASURING ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS

INTRODUCTION
All advertising efforts are directed mainly towards the achievement of business,
marketing and advertising objectives i.e., to increase the sales turnover and thus to market the
maximum profit. The advertiser spends lakhs of rupees in to advertising activity. In the
background of all these efforts, is an attempt to attract the customer towards the product
through advertising.
As soon as the advertising campaign is over, a need generally arises to measure the
effectiveness of the campaign. Whether, it has achieved the desired results i.e. desired sales

product which will naturally, affect the future sale of the product.
In order to measure the effectiveness of advertising copy, two types of tests- pretests
and post tests- can be undertaken. Pretests are generally conducted in the beginning of the
creation process or at the end of creation process or production stage. There are several pre
and post tests techniques to measure the effectiveness of the advertising copy.
The effectiveness of advertising in a particular media may also be measured in any of
the following ways
(a) By giving different addresses to different media,
(b) Different newspapers may be selected for advertisements of different departments,
(c) Coupon blank etc. May be provided with the advertisement or
(d) Enquiry from consumers should mention the name of the source of information. The
technique is known as keying the advertising.
Thus in measuring the effectiveness of advertising we include measuring of the
effectiveness of advertising campaign, advertising copy and the effectiveness of individual
media. This chapter deals with these three problems.
Effectiveness of Advertising
Effectiveness of advertising is an issue that has been debated over the years. Despite,

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this extent of fundamental research in this area continues to be extremely low. Most
effectiveness studies deal with specific advertisements and campaigns. Considerably money is
spent on pre-testing an advertisement copy. But to measure the advertising effectiveness we
must be able to evaluate all the aspects of communication elements. There are the sources,
Message, Media and Budget.
1. Source: It has to be seen whether the source is effective and how the target market
will respond to it. Like Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh
Bachhan, Kareena Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai are very effective. They are attractive,
genuine sports persons or actors and have the credibility. Sometimes, the source loses
its credibility or becomes old and has to be changed.
2. Message: How the message is communicated and what type of message it is also
effects the advertisement. The message should be memorable and should be able to
deliver the advertising objectives. The delivery of the message and its setting or its
situation also matters a lot. The message must have proper headlines, illustrations, text
and layout. The advertisement must be ethical, the message should be credible.
3. Media Strategy: It is very important to decide the proper Media Mix i.e., (Print
Media, Broadcast Media), Newspaper or Magazines, Radio, Television that could
generate the most effective results. Media Vehicle has also to be decided, that is which
newspaper or magazines, which channel of Television or which programme on radio
is to be used. This is decided by keeping the target audience in mind. The location of
the advertisement in a particular media is also important. In a media we can choose
the front page or the back page or the inside page or may ordinary page placed
strategically. In Television some programme are more effective and popular. Some
audience prefers old programmes and some, like to ones.

Importance of Measuring the Effectiveness of Advertising

(1) It acts as a Safety Measure
Testing effectiveness of advertising helps in finding out ineffective advertisement and
advertising campaigns. It facilitates timely adjustments in advertising to make advertising
consumer oriented and result oriented. Thus waste of money in faulty advertising can be
avoided.
(2) Provides Feedback for Remedial Measures
Testing effectiveness of advertising provides useful information to the advertisers to

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take remedial steps against ineffective advertisements.
(3) Avoids Possible Failure
Advertisers are not sure of results of advertising from a particular advertising
campaign. Evaluating advertising effectives helps in estimating the results in order to avoid
complete loss.
(4) To justify the Investment in Advertising
The expenditure on advertisement is considered to be an investment. The investment
in advertising is a marketing investment and its objectives should be spelt out clearly
indicating the results expected from the campaign. The rate and size of return should be
determined in advance. If the expected rate of return is achieved in terms of additional profits,
the advertisement can be considered as effective one.
(5) To know the Communication Effect
The effectiveness of the advertisement can be measured in terms of their
communication effects on the target consumers or audience. The main purpose of advertising
is to communicate to the general public, existing and prospective consumers, various
information about the product and the company. It is therefore desirable to seek post
measurements of advertising in order to determine whether advertisement have been seen or
heard or in other words. whether they have communicated the theme, message or appeal of
the advertising.
(6) Compare Two Markets
Under this procedure, advertising is published in test markets and results are
contrasted with other. Markets so called control markets which have had the regular
advertising programme. The measurements made to determine results may be measurements
of change in sales, change in consumer attitudes, changes in dealer display and so on
depending upon the objectives sought by the advertiser.

Testing of Advertisement
Testing of an advertisement can be done in three methods:
1. Pre Testing
2. Concurrent Testing
3. Post Testing
Pre testing also known as evaluation research is done before the advertisement is
released. Pre testing is essential to see how effective the advertisement will be. Since a lot of

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money is spent on making the advertisement copy etc.. it is essential to gauge what impact
will it have on the audience. Pre testing may be done at a number of points. Right from idea
generation to till its implication. Pre test should be used as a guide. In Pre testing of
advertisement respondents are asked a number of questions in different settings. These
settings can be in laboratory, field etc. Questions asked can be framed to elicit information
from the respondent to make out and differentiate strong advertisement from weak ones.
Methods of Pre Testing of the Advertisement
Focus Groups
Focus groups are used to evaluate one or more ad concepts through in depth

chniques because of their

qualitative nature and ability to discover important issues through exhaustive group
discussions.
Individual Interviews
Test audience may be individually either by taking prior appointments or by
intercepting them at public locations such as shopping malls, cinema halls, etc. and opinions
may be taken regarding alternative ad concepts, rough art, copy etc. People may be asked if
they think a particular ad would get attention, if they find it interesting, if they would read the
copy, if they would believe its claims, if it would lead them to purchase the product etc.
Anteroom Trailer
Yet another method of testing opinions is the anteroom trailer or a mobile van,
wherein a mobile laboratory is set up inside a van parked near popular public places like
malls,, cinema halls etc.. Random passersby are chosen as interviewees and offered some
incentive for participating. Prerecorded test commercials are shown interspersed with some
programmes, and interviews are conducted and opinions taken after the viewing.
Consumer Juries
Consumer or target market representatives are appointed as juries to evaluate the
performance of a selection of ads on various criteria. Juries are presented with various rough
or finished versions of advertisements, and asked to rate or rank them. Consumer may be
asked to either rank the ads from one to other based on the order of their preference, or
compare all the ads in the test, two at a time, and mark the preferred one. The ad that wins the
most times is declared the winner.
Ethnography

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 Ethnography is an observation research technique in which data is collected by
observing consumer behavior. Data can be collected in a number of ways- by having human
researchers observe consumers in stores, work places, homes etc. by giving consumers a
video camera to record their interactions with the target product; by having consumers record
their behavior in diary etc. although difficult to measure and validate, ethnography can yield
deep insights in to consumer behaviour and attitudes generated through communication.
Programme Analysis
A technique specially advised for the pretesting finished broadcast material by Paul F.
Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton is the programme analysis. It uses a simple device called the
Stanton-Lazersfeld programme analyzer
throughout a broadcast programme or commercial. The test audience is seated in chairs
equipped with left and right hand push buttons. They view or hear the programmes or
commercials and press the right-hand button when they like something and left hand button
when they dislike something. If neither button is pressed, evaluators assume that the subjects
are different.
On-Air Testing
This is a method of field-testing broadcast commercials by airing them in one or more
test market either in place of the new commercial or at a new time period. Most commercials
tested are in the finished form, although testing of semi-finished ads may also happen.
Viewers who saw the test commercial are interviewed to determine their recall levels, brand
attitudes, brand knowledge etc. On-air test are mostly used for testing recall levels of various
sales points of a commercial.
Theatre Test
This laboratory method of pretesting broadcast commercial is popularly used in many
western countries. This method tests the commercial in a movie hall in front of an audience of
about 500 people. Some commercials, including the one being tested, are interested in the
entertainment program shown to the audience.
The entertainment program is preceded by a lottery, in which people are asked to
allocate a sum of money among different brands and after the program there is another similar
lottery. The measurement of the effectiveness of the tested commercial is determined by

before the programme.

Portfolio Test

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 This method is commonly used for pretesting finished print ads in a laboratory setting.

of recall the percentage of participants who can recall brand and/ or product, pictorial or copy
aspects of the ad, sales points, etc. It may also involve rating the ads or products advertised.
Portfolio tests are easy to administer and analyze.
Dummy Advertising Vehicles
In an improvement to portfolio tests, a cross section of consumers is given a dummy
or test publication, containing a portfolio of about 15-20 ads along with regular editorial
material, to be read at home. Participants might be intercepted at public places in test area and
often screened before giving the test publication. Alternatively, publications may be
distributed in same homes. The test ads are inserted in such a manner that the readers cannot
distinguish them from the regular pages Participants are instructed to read the publications in
a normal manner. They are often interviewed on phone to next day to determine recall of the
ads and sales points, overall ad impressions, etc.
Readability Test
These are formulaic procedures for evaluating the readability of text, which are used
instead of conducting an actual survey of human readers. They measure the ease of reading
copy in a print ad including comprehensions, retention, reading speed, and reading
persistence.
Physiological Measures

ads in a labora
for both print and broadcast ads. Following are some of the popular physiological measures:

1) Eye tracking:
Eye tracking is used to measure eye position as well as eye movements to
evaluate aspects like which elements of an add attract more attention, how long eye linger
on them, and in which sequence or path various elements are viewed. There are various
methods for measuring eye movements. A popular technique uses video images from
which the eye position is extracted. Another modern method uses a sensor to beam infra

and measures the angle between the corneal reflection and the centre of

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 arrive at the exact spot in the ad where the eye is focused.
2) Pupil dilation:
Advertisers also rely on abrupt changes in pupil diameter, which indicates
current levels of mental effort put forth by the user.. It is assumed that with increased
interests and action, people becomes dilated, and when interest level is low, it contracts to

his pupil dilation is known as pupil metrics.

3) Galvanic skin response:
This is a physiological testing technique in which the electrical conductivity or
resistance of the skin is measured to check the level of arousal caused by an
advertisement. It is performed with a psycho galvanometer that measures changes in the

Response to an ad can activate sweat glands, resulting in lower electrical resistance. This
is recorded in a psycho galvanometer. It thus senses the small amount of sweating that

interests and emotions were stimulated.

4) Brain waves:
Electroencephalography is the neurophysiologic measurement of the electrical
activity of the brain performed by recording electrical frequencies in the brain. Recordings
are taken from several locations on the skull by placing electrodes on the scalp or in the
cerebral cortex. These are sometimes called brain waves. By measuring the electrical
activity in various parts of the brain, researchers can tell whether the subject is inactive or
paying attention to a stimulus.

Concurrent Testing Methods

Concurrent testing takes place while an ad campaign is running. some of the
techniques are similar to those used in pretesting.
Coincidental Survey
This methodology is a system of audience measurement primarily for the broadcast
media. C. E. Hooper popularized this system wherein random calls are made to people to ask
three basic questions:
Are you listening to the radio/watching television?
What programme?

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 On what station/channel?
Advertisers can determine whether the target audience is consuming the message and
to what extent the message is comprehended. Often the data collected for television from
people is compared with people meter data to get consistent results.
Attitude Tests
Surveys are popularly used to measure consumer attitudes towards the ad and/or the
advertised brand. Attitude tests can be done concurrently or as a posttest. Researchers ask
various questions to individuals regarding the message, tone, comprehension, spokesperson,
wording, etc. of an ad and the results are used to indicate positive or negative attitudes. Tools
like direct questions, rating scales, semantic differential, checklists and partially structured
interviews are used to measure attitudes.
Tracking Studies
Tracking studies track or measure the effects of an ad campaign continuously over a
performance based on measures
such as brand and advertising recall, awareness and interest; purchase intentions; product trial
and usage; purchase frequency; target market characteristics; media habits; attitudes about the
advertised brand versus competition; etc. Following methods are also popularly used in
tracking
1) Wave analysis: Wave analysis measures the impact of advertising over time through
multiple measures and a series of interviews, which give a wave like pattern of
communication performance when plotted in a graph.

2) Consumer diaries: In consumer diary method a panel of consumers is asked to maintain a

diary in which they record their media usage, purchase patterns, brand usage, brand
switches, exposure to competitive promotions etc. while the campaign is in progress. The
technique provides information regarding important parameters as directly reported by the
panel members and can help in making changes in the campaign to improve its
performance.

3) Pantry checks: This method primarily used during new product introductions, a
researcher visits homes of consumers and inquires regarding the products used or
purchased. Alternatively, he may do a physical count of the inventory of various brands
stocked by the consumer. Sometimes consumers are also requested to retain empty packs,

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 which the researcher tallies.

4) Single-source tracking: This method refers to the collection of data ranging from
communication exposure to product purchase regarding a single family or group of
consumers. Through single-source tracking, data can be collected regarding media habits,
purchase behavior etc. by monitoring expo
decision-making and purchase behavior can be tracked through entire communication-to-
purchase cycle using sophisticated research method and devices.
Post Testing Method
Post testing method is the most common of all testing because it is only after an
advertisement has run for a period of time, it is tested to measure its effectiveness. The
following are some methods:
Recall Test
In this test, the respondents are asked to recall the advertisements they have seen and
the brand is concealed and asked whether they had seen the advertisement through reading,
listening or viewing. recall tests can be conducted for both print ads and broadcast
commercials.
In recall tests of print ads, participants are asked to read test publication in their
homes. They next day they are screened to determine if they have read the publication or not.
Qualifying participants are questioned regarding ad elements, sales points, purchase interest
and intention, etc. For testing recall of broadcast commercials a day after the commercials are
aired, participants are screened to qualify those who have seen the commercials.
Recognition Test
This is conducted to see whether the advertisement is recognized or not. This Test can
be conducted by mail surveys. The advertisement can be broken into headlines, layouts, body,
copy, logo etc. and it is seen how these elements are are remembered by the respondents. The
recognition test can be conducted in a number of ways. The magazines are placed in the home
of the respondents and they are requested to read that magazine on that day. Next day they are
asked questions about the advertisements appearing in that magazine to assess the recall of
advertisements.
Inquiry Tests
These are behavioural post-test to check how much an ad campaign has succeeded in
developing purchase intentions. Their objective is to generate the maximum number of

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inquiries in response to an advertising campaign. People are encouraged to inquire about the
product through business reply cards, toll-free numbers, e-mails and websites, etc. In return,
they may sometimes be offered incentives like product samples, information booklets, free
trials, small gifts, etc.
Sales Tests
These are also behavioral post-tests to check how much an ad campaign has succeeded
in generating actual sales. Under this method advertising campaign is run in the markets
selected for testing purpose. The impact of the campaign is evaluated by actual sales in the
selected markets.
The market with high sale is considered the best market for effective sales campaign.
In other markets suitable changes are made in the advertising campaign Experimental sales
tests can also be done, wherein different version of ad can be run in different test markets to
check which one generates maximum sales.
Comprehensive Measures
Advertisers are often interested in understanding the performance of advertising on all
the above-mentioned parameters and various media jointly because only a comprehensive
analysis can tell how effective a campaign has been. For instance, an ad performing well on
recognition may perform poorly on attitude and purchase intention. Comprehensive tests can
spot out such anomalies so that performance can be improved through the entire process from
product awareness to product purchase.
Attitude Test
The attitude of potential customers can be measured on the attitude scale. The scale

other. These scales can be five point Likert scale or a seven point scale.
The effectiveness of the advertisement can be measured by comparing the present
sales with the post sales. Therefore, it becomes obvious that the exact measurement of
effectiveness can be measured in a number of ways but it cannot be very accurate as many
factors are to be considered and evaluated. These could be;
(i) The cost per thousand target buyers incurred on media category and media vehicle.
(ii) Percentage of audience who red, saw, and noted the advertisement.
(iii)
(iv) Change in attitude after seeing the advertisement.
(v) No enquiries received for the advertisement.

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