Testing, one-two, one-two
Market Research: Does a campaign achieve its goals better with one approach or another? Advertisers put their strategies to the test with pretests. However, this usually brings only limited joy to advertising creatives in particular.
Market research Does a campaign achieve its goals better with this or that implementation? Advertisers put their measures to the test with pretests. They could hardly be more different, brands and institutions such as Chanel N° 5, Kukident Super-Haftcreme, Peugeot 307, Aspirin C and the Lung League. But they do have one thing in common in terms of communications strategy: their product managers had the efficiency of planned advertising measures checked for their potential impact by means of a pre-test. And they do this in the knowledge that the perceptual selection of advertising depends on a vast number of complex factors - consumers' needs, ideals, interests or expectations - and that advertising does not follow any logical principles, but can only be based retrospectively on certain patterns and correlations.Nevertheless, research institutes claim to know the psychological rules of the game of perceptual selection as far as possible. Or, to put it simply: bigger, louder and different from the usual. This can be read, for example, in the company portrait of the Lucerne-based Interdata Institute, which has been measuring advertising impact in seven European countries for over ten years with its "Psychometer" instrument.
Need for pretests recognizedStefan Oglesby, deputy managing director of the Link Institute, recognizes a justified need for pretests in view of an increasingly uniform competitive environment, because "advertising messages are usually about hidden, difficult-to-verbalize and subliminal emotional impact mechanisms."
Given the cutbacks in advertising budgets in recent years, one might assume that advertising managers would have the targeting accuracy and thus the efficiency of their communications instruments tested even more frequently than in better times. In practice, however, this logic did not prevail, nor did the recommendation to control advertising expenditure as anti-cyclically as possible. In line with the latter, spending on quantitative and qualitative pretests has also been cut back, albeit to a lesser extent.
According to the Swiss Marketing and Social Research Association (SMS), market research sales in Switzerland increased in 2003 solely as a result of additional purchases. "We break down sales by survey method and industry, but not by the specific type of market research. However, it can be assumed that the pretest share of stable total industry sales has remained unchanged in recent years," explains SMS Managing Director Pirmin Schallberger. Since the "real surge" in the second half of the 1990s, growth rates have become much more modest. More than half of the institutes even lost sales in 2003.
Few can still speak of a greater willingness to test advertising. "During the Internet euphoria, demand for pretests picked up," Stefan Oglesby looks back. "Since the bubble burst, there has been a return to courant normal," he says. Another reason is that market research offers its greatest added value for clients when it is integrated into the entire strategy process - from conception to implementation and controlling.
Market participants are holding their ownSuch a comprehensive effort has its price, however, and only clients with large campaign budgets in the business-to-consumer sector can afford it. Apparently, the redimensioning of the market is not threatening its existence. Thomas Gehrig, Senior Research Consultant at Scope in Zurich, works, like Ulrike Grabner, psychologist at Interdata/IMAS Qualitativ, at one of those institutes that have been able to prove themselves and position themselves well in the market.
Ulrike Grabner specifies: "Experience in Austria has shown that in economically weak phases such as the current one, tests increase, especially in the concept stage, i.e.: storyboards and animatics." The reasons are obvious: risk minimization and cost savings at the same time. In addition, he says, it is even more important today that the consumer still understands the "idea behind it" and the link to the brand, especially in the case of highly creative implementations. Jos Vloemans, Managing Director of Interdata: "Purely qualitative pretests are only used to elicit the communication clarity of very elaborate films." But the lion's share would be made by tests to check the effectiveness of TV commercials during their life cycles. In other words, at a point in time when the creation has long since been completed or when remedial action has to be taken.
Nevertheless, the pretest is met with doubts, especially among advertising creatives. Erich Baumgartner, Managing Director of Lowe, assesses his experience with pretests as "basically positive," although in some cases they have not produced clear results and have caused confusion on the decision-making side. For Catherine Purgly, Strategic Planner at FCB Leutenegger Krüll, the usability of a pretest result depends on the detailed elaboration of the concept. For Pascal Schaub, Head of Strategic Planning at Publicis, pretesting is useful for strategic concept approaches. He considers creative approaches pretesting, on the other hand, to be nonsense. "Laymen cannot and should not play judge and executioner in a clinical-artificial situation." Hanspeter Schweizer, CD at Wirz, is in the same vein, describing his experience with pretests as "rather sobering.
Because, on the one hand, the test subjects have to deal with my ad for an hour instead of just two seconds, as is the case in practice, and on the other hand, because they will see my campaign not just for an hour, but for one or two years," he says, not without irony. Pascal Schaub prefers web-based surveys and the agency's own video tool because they generate spontaneous, authentic responses and true insights. He knows he is in a privileged position because Publicis can draw on its international network. Markus Ruf, co-owner and co-creator of Ruf Lanz, argues with the words of advertising icon Wolf Rogowsky, according to which the test person meets innovative approaches with uncertainty and skepticism and therefore often turns out to be a creation killer.
Rogowsky says in his philippic: "Everything new needs - apart from its quality ... also a certain authority of appearance; but it is precisely this authority that the pretest robs in principle, because it reveals that it is a test appearance that can still be stopped. And it undermines the authority of what is printed, for example, in many cases by exposing the ad as painted cardboard with kinked corners and slowly detaching headlines." So it's hardly surprising that Ruf Lanz didn't have her "Stevie Wonder" TV spot for the Mühlehalde home for the blind subjected to a pretest. Ruf says meaningfully, "I don't think it would have survived a pretest."
One advertiser, who does not wish to be named, criticizes not the market research but the motivation: "Pretests are demanded above all by marketing managers of large companies who want to protect themselves, not least against internal critics. With a pretest in their pocket, they are off the hook and can pass the responsibility on to the test: It's not my taste that matters, but the audience's." Alexander Jaggy, CD at Jung von Matt/Limmat, observes something similar: "What has changed in the recession is the motivation to conduct a test. Pretests are increasingly needed in order to be able to prove in the event of failure that everything has been done in advance to exclude just that."
Although he considers pretests to be useful, the tricky thing about them is that they cannot reveal any learning processes. The typical constellation is typical: The customer loves a creative implementation, but is not sure whether his target group understands it correctly. This happens more often than one might think, says Pascal Schaub, and also corresponds to the irritatingly frequent comment of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss in the market research institute: "I like the idea, but I don't think people understand it ..." In such cases, Publicis goes out on the street and asks not for likes and dislikes, but for understanding. And lo and behold, "Interestingly, this has never resulted in a creation killer," says Schaub.
Psychological skill underestimatedThe market research industry responds to this criticism with understanding and, from its point of view, plausible arguments. At market leader IHA GfK, where pretests have increased despite analysis material from the parent company in Germany, Irmtraud Oelschläger, Head of Media/Communications Research, is aware of the objections on the part of creative agencies. "As long as the advertising conveys relevant content and can anchor the messages, anything goes," she says. Often, however, high-flying creative implementations would leave the message ahead and alienate the viewer. In contrast to German advertising consumers, who place a lot of emphasis on lifeworlds and atmosphere in spots, posters and ads, the Swiss are much more rational, she says, which is why clients place particular emphasis on comprehensibility.
This shows the problem with pretesting when the customer only checks one dimension and ignores the overall picture. Ulrike Grabner at Interdata agrees with the criticism only in part. "There are definitely cases where an innovative implementation 'only' fails because it is not mainstream. An experienced researcher senses that, too. At our company, there are two or three pretests every year, where we recommend our customers to ignore the Mafo results."
Her institute colleague Jos Vloemans presupposes a great deal of professional experience and competence on the part of the market researcher for the correct interpretation of qualitative test results - a frequent weak point in pretests. "Younger project managers in this research area are always exposed to the risk of letting rational aspects outweigh emotional impact," he says. "A pretest that is limited to recording some average values and likes and dislikes among mainstream consumers really doesn't do justice to innovative approaches," Stefan Oglesby of Link also admits.
Experience has shown him that whenever creatives and market research work together, the results are always significantly above average. This works best when market research maps out the terrain and leaves the design to the advertisers, who are then tested for their effectiveness. "Unfortunately, the knowledge about the various adequate methods regarding pretesting is very diffuse among many advertising agencies and clients," says Thomas Gehrig of Scope.
Often, moreover, the cognition dimensions such as likeability,
general communication performance, image transfer, general brand impact and the like are not defined precisely enough before pretesting, which can lead to erroneous conclusions. Technological progress through increasingly sophisticated measurement methods is also unlikely to change anything about the prejudices, especially since such apparative measurements are met with reservations in the Mafo industry itself or will not explore non-verbalizable impact mechanisms for at least five to ten years, according to Stefan Oglesby's expectation.
Jos Vloemans is skeptical: "Customers are not looking for medical or neuroscientific statements and findings, but for information that allows conclusions to be drawn about the consumer's economic actions." Ulrike Grabner adds: "Because people react differently when they are connected to devices than they do in normal life, such measurement methods are unlikely to become established.
> See also interview on page 14The best spots of 2003 and 2004
The Interdata Research Institute, in cooperation with IMAS International Linz, has been checking around 400 to 500 spots a year since 1992 as part of the Psychometer. Of these, an analysis has now been made of the best spots of the two years 2003 and 2004
were created. The twenty best spots were each evaluated in terms of attention (impact), liking, opinion improvement and purchase incentive character.
The result: Of the spots studied, none made it into the top 20 in all four dimensions. Only one made it to the top in three of the four dimensions. Eleven achieved a top position in two dimensions and 55 in one. This shows how difficult it is to advertise really effectively. Read which spots reached the top league and, above all, why in our next issue. (la)
"Peter Felser, author of the dissertation "Intensity of Advertising Research by Large Advertisers" and co-owner of the creative agency SFLB, on increasing customer demands and polarization in testing.
WW Most companies are cutting back on their advertising investments during the crisis, and probably on advertising research as well. How much do advertising strategists and PMs rely on their gut feeling today?
Peter Felser There are big differences between industries, companies and even hierarchy levels in one and the same company. While PMs and brand managers tend to rely less on their gut feeling today, I notice the opposite tendency among top managers and entrepreneurs.
Since purchase-relevant differentiation is increasingly rarely created by objective product advantages, but by emotional brand worlds, the demands on advertising research have increased. How do you assess the adaptation of the relatively highly standardized advertising research to this situation?
A handful of dedicated institutes offer highly sensitive methods that are appropriate for today's environment. However, the methodology is far less problematic than the interpretation of the results. The main problem with testing lies in the misinterpretation of the results. If 20 percent of the test subjects feel excluded from an advertisement, is this good or bad? Very different conclusions can be drawn from the same test results. Many clients are afraid to run polarizing advertising, even though it has a very high impact potential.
According to your 1991 study, not even a quarter of all large advertisers had their advertising measures tested. How would you assess the ratio today, when the temptation may be there to cut back on testing for cost reasons?
The proportion has hardly changed on the whole. However, I see
greater polarization. Some companies test everything - regardless of whether they are safe or unsafe. Others don't even think of testing anything.
Where does this development come from?
The intensity of application of advertising tests has a lot to do with the industry and the corporate culture. In companies with many hierarchical levels, more testing is done. International corporations often belong to this category.
Contrary to what you predicted at the time, the volume of advertising in Switzerland has fallen drastically. Do you think that spending on advertising research has been cut to the same extent, or has the opposite occurred because every advertising franc has had to become more efficient?
At the time, the study referred to the biggest advertisers. And they have indeed increased massively. The advertising investments of the 25 largest advertisers, for example, rose from around 500 million Swiss francs in 1993 to over one billion in 2003. Advertising investments have thus doubled in ten years! This fact is often not recognized in the discussion about the importance of commercial advertising. The importance of advertising has increased massively among the big players. However, I assume that advertising research has not grown in the same proportion.
In recent years, technological measurement methods have become increasingly sophisticated. However, are these instrument-based measurements actually being used or are they slow sellers?
In Switzerland, apparative methods have not been able to establish themselves. The more sophisticated methods should not hide the fact that the results of these methods leave a very large scope for interpretation. I now know the activation potential of a display, but I do not know whether it releases positive or negative energy. This requires additional clarifications with additional costs.
Food, luxury food and tobacco multinationals have also discovered customizing for themselves, because the target groups are becoming atomized. Under these conditions, and even more so in small, trilingual Switzerland, how can the expense of pretests pay off?
The fragmentation of society makes appropriate testing procedures more expensive. Efficient advertising research therefore starts early in the campaign development process: In understanding the target audience and developing the strategic platform. Often, in-depth analysis to identify and understand the values and attitudes of individual segments is more efficient than testing layouts on random people.
Has the influence of pretest results on strategy and campaign decisions increased or decreased compared to the 1990s?
If anything, the influence has increased. The explosiveness, however, has not. This has to do with the fact that creative campaigns can survive a test today.
At the time, you noticed that little advertising research was taking place in the consulting-intensive service industry. Has there been a rethink here due to the branding culture, globalization and market concentration as well as the critical consumer?
The service industry has indeed changed enormously. For decades, it lagged miles behind the classic consumer goods industry in terms of marketing and brand understanding. Today, service companies are much more intensively concerned with their positioning and their brand promise. In some cases, they have surpassed the classic branded companies in their philosophy.
Although you concluded in your study that advertising research does not restrict creativity, you still seem to be alone in this statement today. As CEO of the creative agency SFLB, how do you assess the skepticism on the part of creatives?
Inappropriate advertising research can, of course, narrow or even kill creativity. Professional advertising research, on the other hand, should help identify new "insights" and thus develop fresher strategies. It is a good basis for creatives to create extraordinary campaigns. Many of our campaigns are put through their paces by market research institutes. And even after a serious pretest, they still win ADC gold - such as the Feldschlösschen TV spots. But the creatives should remain skeptical. I remain so, too.
Interview: Luca Aloisi
"Effective advertising research starts early in the campaign development process."
Luca Aloisi
Need for pretests recognizedStefan Oglesby, deputy managing director of the Link Institute, recognizes a justified need for pretests in view of an increasingly uniform competitive environment, because "advertising messages are usually about hidden, difficult-to-verbalize and subliminal emotional impact mechanisms."
Given the cutbacks in advertising budgets in recent years, one might assume that advertising managers would have the targeting accuracy and thus the efficiency of their communications instruments tested even more frequently than in better times. In practice, however, this logic did not prevail, nor did the recommendation to control advertising expenditure as anti-cyclically as possible. In line with the latter, spending on quantitative and qualitative pretests has also been cut back, albeit to a lesser extent.
According to the Swiss Marketing and Social Research Association (SMS), market research sales in Switzerland increased in 2003 solely as a result of additional purchases. "We break down sales by survey method and industry, but not by the specific type of market research. However, it can be assumed that the pretest share of stable total industry sales has remained unchanged in recent years," explains SMS Managing Director Pirmin Schallberger. Since the "real surge" in the second half of the 1990s, growth rates have become much more modest. More than half of the institutes even lost sales in 2003.
Few can still speak of a greater willingness to test advertising. "During the Internet euphoria, demand for pretests picked up," Stefan Oglesby looks back. "Since the bubble burst, there has been a return to courant normal," he says. Another reason is that market research offers its greatest added value for clients when it is integrated into the entire strategy process - from conception to implementation and controlling.
Market participants are holding their ownSuch a comprehensive effort has its price, however, and only clients with large campaign budgets in the business-to-consumer sector can afford it. Apparently, the redimensioning of the market is not threatening its existence. Thomas Gehrig, Senior Research Consultant at Scope in Zurich, works, like Ulrike Grabner, psychologist at Interdata/IMAS Qualitativ, at one of those institutes that have been able to prove themselves and position themselves well in the market.
Ulrike Grabner specifies: "Experience in Austria has shown that in economically weak phases such as the current one, tests increase, especially in the concept stage, i.e.: storyboards and animatics." The reasons are obvious: risk minimization and cost savings at the same time. In addition, he says, it is even more important today that the consumer still understands the "idea behind it" and the link to the brand, especially in the case of highly creative implementations. Jos Vloemans, Managing Director of Interdata: "Purely qualitative pretests are only used to elicit the communication clarity of very elaborate films." But the lion's share would be made by tests to check the effectiveness of TV commercials during their life cycles. In other words, at a point in time when the creation has long since been completed or when remedial action has to be taken.
Nevertheless, the pretest is met with doubts, especially among advertising creatives. Erich Baumgartner, Managing Director of Lowe, assesses his experience with pretests as "basically positive," although in some cases they have not produced clear results and have caused confusion on the decision-making side. For Catherine Purgly, Strategic Planner at FCB Leutenegger Krüll, the usability of a pretest result depends on the detailed elaboration of the concept. For Pascal Schaub, Head of Strategic Planning at Publicis, pretesting is useful for strategic concept approaches. He considers creative approaches pretesting, on the other hand, to be nonsense. "Laymen cannot and should not play judge and executioner in a clinical-artificial situation." Hanspeter Schweizer, CD at Wirz, is in the same vein, describing his experience with pretests as "rather sobering.
Because, on the one hand, the test subjects have to deal with my ad for an hour instead of just two seconds, as is the case in practice, and on the other hand, because they will see my campaign not just for an hour, but for one or two years," he says, not without irony. Pascal Schaub prefers web-based surveys and the agency's own video tool because they generate spontaneous, authentic responses and true insights. He knows he is in a privileged position because Publicis can draw on its international network. Markus Ruf, co-owner and co-creator of Ruf Lanz, argues with the words of advertising icon Wolf Rogowsky, according to which the test person meets innovative approaches with uncertainty and skepticism and therefore often turns out to be a creation killer.
Rogowsky says in his philippic: "Everything new needs - apart from its quality ... also a certain authority of appearance; but it is precisely this authority that the pretest robs in principle, because it reveals that it is a test appearance that can still be stopped. And it undermines the authority of what is printed, for example, in many cases by exposing the ad as painted cardboard with kinked corners and slowly detaching headlines." So it's hardly surprising that Ruf Lanz didn't have her "Stevie Wonder" TV spot for the Mühlehalde home for the blind subjected to a pretest. Ruf says meaningfully, "I don't think it would have survived a pretest."
One advertiser, who does not wish to be named, criticizes not the market research but the motivation: "Pretests are demanded above all by marketing managers of large companies who want to protect themselves, not least against internal critics. With a pretest in their pocket, they are off the hook and can pass the responsibility on to the test: It's not my taste that matters, but the audience's." Alexander Jaggy, CD at Jung von Matt/Limmat, observes something similar: "What has changed in the recession is the motivation to conduct a test. Pretests are increasingly needed in order to be able to prove in the event of failure that everything has been done in advance to exclude just that."
Although he considers pretests to be useful, the tricky thing about them is that they cannot reveal any learning processes. The typical constellation is typical: The customer loves a creative implementation, but is not sure whether his target group understands it correctly. This happens more often than one might think, says Pascal Schaub, and also corresponds to the irritatingly frequent comment of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss in the market research institute: "I like the idea, but I don't think people understand it ..." In such cases, Publicis goes out on the street and asks not for likes and dislikes, but for understanding. And lo and behold, "Interestingly, this has never resulted in a creation killer," says Schaub.
Psychological skill underestimatedThe market research industry responds to this criticism with understanding and, from its point of view, plausible arguments. At market leader IHA GfK, where pretests have increased despite analysis material from the parent company in Germany, Irmtraud Oelschläger, Head of Media/Communications Research, is aware of the objections on the part of creative agencies. "As long as the advertising conveys relevant content and can anchor the messages, anything goes," she says. Often, however, high-flying creative implementations would leave the message ahead and alienate the viewer. In contrast to German advertising consumers, who place a lot of emphasis on lifeworlds and atmosphere in spots, posters and ads, the Swiss are much more rational, she says, which is why clients place particular emphasis on comprehensibility.
This shows the problem with pretesting when the customer only checks one dimension and ignores the overall picture. Ulrike Grabner at Interdata agrees with the criticism only in part. "There are definitely cases where an innovative implementation 'only' fails because it is not mainstream. An experienced researcher senses that, too. At our company, there are two or three pretests every year, where we recommend our customers to ignore the Mafo results."
Her institute colleague Jos Vloemans presupposes a great deal of professional experience and competence on the part of the market researcher for the correct interpretation of qualitative test results - a frequent weak point in pretests. "Younger project managers in this research area are always exposed to the risk of letting rational aspects outweigh emotional impact," he says. "A pretest that is limited to recording some average values and likes and dislikes among mainstream consumers really doesn't do justice to innovative approaches," Stefan Oglesby of Link also admits.
Experience has shown him that whenever creatives and market research work together, the results are always significantly above average. This works best when market research maps out the terrain and leaves the design to the advertisers, who are then tested for their effectiveness. "Unfortunately, the knowledge about the various adequate methods regarding pretesting is very diffuse among many advertising agencies and clients," says Thomas Gehrig of Scope.
Often, moreover, the cognition dimensions such as likeability,
general communication performance, image transfer, general brand impact and the like are not defined precisely enough before pretesting, which can lead to erroneous conclusions. Technological progress through increasingly sophisticated measurement methods is also unlikely to change anything about the prejudices, especially since such apparative measurements are met with reservations in the Mafo industry itself or will not explore non-verbalizable impact mechanisms for at least five to ten years, according to Stefan Oglesby's expectation.
Jos Vloemans is skeptical: "Customers are not looking for medical or neuroscientific statements and findings, but for information that allows conclusions to be drawn about the consumer's economic actions." Ulrike Grabner adds: "Because people react differently when they are connected to devices than they do in normal life, such measurement methods are unlikely to become established.
> See also interview on page 14The best spots of 2003 and 2004
The Interdata Research Institute, in cooperation with IMAS International Linz, has been checking around 400 to 500 spots a year since 1992 as part of the Psychometer. Of these, an analysis has now been made of the best spots of the two years 2003 and 2004
were created. The twenty best spots were each evaluated in terms of attention (impact), liking, opinion improvement and purchase incentive character.
The result: Of the spots studied, none made it into the top 20 in all four dimensions. Only one made it to the top in three of the four dimensions. Eleven achieved a top position in two dimensions and 55 in one. This shows how difficult it is to advertise really effectively. Read which spots reached the top league and, above all, why in our next issue. (la)
"Peter Felser, author of the dissertation "Intensity of Advertising Research by Large Advertisers" and co-owner of the creative agency SFLB, on increasing customer demands and polarization in testing.
WW Most companies are cutting back on their advertising investments during the crisis, and probably on advertising research as well. How much do advertising strategists and PMs rely on their gut feeling today?
Peter Felser There are big differences between industries, companies and even hierarchy levels in one and the same company. While PMs and brand managers tend to rely less on their gut feeling today, I notice the opposite tendency among top managers and entrepreneurs.
Since purchase-relevant differentiation is increasingly rarely created by objective product advantages, but by emotional brand worlds, the demands on advertising research have increased. How do you assess the adaptation of the relatively highly standardized advertising research to this situation?
A handful of dedicated institutes offer highly sensitive methods that are appropriate for today's environment. However, the methodology is far less problematic than the interpretation of the results. The main problem with testing lies in the misinterpretation of the results. If 20 percent of the test subjects feel excluded from an advertisement, is this good or bad? Very different conclusions can be drawn from the same test results. Many clients are afraid to run polarizing advertising, even though it has a very high impact potential.
According to your 1991 study, not even a quarter of all large advertisers had their advertising measures tested. How would you assess the ratio today, when the temptation may be there to cut back on testing for cost reasons?
The proportion has hardly changed on the whole. However, I see
greater polarization. Some companies test everything - regardless of whether they are safe or unsafe. Others don't even think of testing anything.
Where does this development come from?
The intensity of application of advertising tests has a lot to do with the industry and the corporate culture. In companies with many hierarchical levels, more testing is done. International corporations often belong to this category.
Contrary to what you predicted at the time, the volume of advertising in Switzerland has fallen drastically. Do you think that spending on advertising research has been cut to the same extent, or has the opposite occurred because every advertising franc has had to become more efficient?
At the time, the study referred to the biggest advertisers. And they have indeed increased massively. The advertising investments of the 25 largest advertisers, for example, rose from around 500 million Swiss francs in 1993 to over one billion in 2003. Advertising investments have thus doubled in ten years! This fact is often not recognized in the discussion about the importance of commercial advertising. The importance of advertising has increased massively among the big players. However, I assume that advertising research has not grown in the same proportion.
In recent years, technological measurement methods have become increasingly sophisticated. However, are these instrument-based measurements actually being used or are they slow sellers?
In Switzerland, apparative methods have not been able to establish themselves. The more sophisticated methods should not hide the fact that the results of these methods leave a very large scope for interpretation. I now know the activation potential of a display, but I do not know whether it releases positive or negative energy. This requires additional clarifications with additional costs.
Food, luxury food and tobacco multinationals have also discovered customizing for themselves, because the target groups are becoming atomized. Under these conditions, and even more so in small, trilingual Switzerland, how can the expense of pretests pay off?
The fragmentation of society makes appropriate testing procedures more expensive. Efficient advertising research therefore starts early in the campaign development process: In understanding the target audience and developing the strategic platform. Often, in-depth analysis to identify and understand the values and attitudes of individual segments is more efficient than testing layouts on random people.
Has the influence of pretest results on strategy and campaign decisions increased or decreased compared to the 1990s?
If anything, the influence has increased. The explosiveness, however, has not. This has to do with the fact that creative campaigns can survive a test today.
At the time, you noticed that little advertising research was taking place in the consulting-intensive service industry. Has there been a rethink here due to the branding culture, globalization and market concentration as well as the critical consumer?
The service industry has indeed changed enormously. For decades, it lagged miles behind the classic consumer goods industry in terms of marketing and brand understanding. Today, service companies are much more intensively concerned with their positioning and their brand promise. In some cases, they have surpassed the classic branded companies in their philosophy.
Although you concluded in your study that advertising research does not restrict creativity, you still seem to be alone in this statement today. As CEO of the creative agency SFLB, how do you assess the skepticism on the part of creatives?
Inappropriate advertising research can, of course, narrow or even kill creativity. Professional advertising research, on the other hand, should help identify new "insights" and thus develop fresher strategies. It is a good basis for creatives to create extraordinary campaigns. Many of our campaigns are put through their paces by market research institutes. And even after a serious pretest, they still win ADC gold - such as the Feldschlösschen TV spots. But the creatives should remain skeptical. I remain so, too.
Interview: Luca Aloisi
"Effective advertising research starts early in the campaign development process."
Luca Aloisi
