Modern Marketing Information & Analysis (Week 25 - Exam Revision)
“Can Tracking Studies Tell Lies?”
(Robert Heath, International Journal of
Advertising, Vol.8, No.2, 1999 – WARC)
Continuous advertising
tracking has been an established and accepted part of marketing evaluation for
many years. Researchers have responsibility to their customers, and their
customers are all those who use the results they produce. Thus, be they
marketing managers, research buyers, or advertising agencies, it is vital that
an attempt is made to satisfy their needs.
Traditional tracking measures
should cover the following areas:
- Spontaneous and prompted brand awareness;
- Brand usage and availability;
- Brand image;
- Prompted advertising awareness;
- Detailed recall;
- Executional diagnostics (for example, liking, wear-out);
- Recognition and attribution of de-branded storyboards.
Attempts to also quantify
likely changes in behaviour, through the introduction of such measures are as
follows:
- Purchase consideration;
- Purchase intention.
Advertising awareness
continues to be regarded as an important measure by most users - it cannot be
denied that achieving the highest possible awareness for a particular campaign
is a laudable objective. But perhaps a more sensible approach is to regard ad
awareness mainly as a measure of the efficiency of a campaign rather than its effectiveness.
In the UK nowadays it is rare
for TV advertising to convey a simple verbal product message - in almost all
cases the communication of an advertisement is a complex mix of personality and
social references, communicated via music, casting, special effects, and a host
of other non-verbal production elements and values. These are hard to identify
in a straightforward question about advertising communication.
Image measurement
was the core of continuous tracking. Brown (1985) stated:
In England, the
orthodox view has been that advertising is generally a matter of persuasion.
Thus measuring image movements was seen as the most direct and valid way of
assessing advertising.
David Aaker,
in Managing Brand Equity (1991), states:
A brand
association is anything 'linked' in the memory to the brand. Thus McDonald's
could be linked to the character Ronald McDonald, a consumer segment such as
kids, a feeling such as having fun, a product characteristic such as service, a
symbol such as the golden arches, a lifestyle such as harried, an object such
as a car, or an activity such as going to a movie theatre next to a McDonald's.
In brand tracking,
we use not only traditional measures such as brand and advertising awareness
and category-related image, but also alongside these a range of specific
measures designed to evaluate the strength of brand associations. These
measures are:
- Brand uniqueness;
- Vividness of imagery;
- Appeal of imagery;
- Perceived advertising pressure;
- Memorability of advertising.
However, consumers
do not buy brands simply because of the elements that are associated with them.
The true strength of a brand, like that of an iceberg, is defined by the part
below the waterline. This is defined as brand credit. This represents
the equity the brand has built up over time with consumers, through its
marketing and advertising. icon has developed a range of specific brand credit
measures which it also includes in its tracking. These are:
- Brand likeability;
- Brand confidence;
- Brand loyalty.
It should be noted
that loyalty is not a measure of behaviour, but a measure of attachment to the
brand.
“Facts from Tracking Studies – and Old
Advertising Chestnuts”
(Gordon Brown, Millward Brown – Admap, 1988
– WARC)
Tracking studies are very
simple things. They consist of graphs – wiggly lines – representing answers to
questions over time, with other graphs below showing the precise timing and
weight of the media expenditure, so that we can see at a glance what
advertising caused what effects. The only complexity is with ‘ad awareness’
where we can use mathematical methods to determine whether the ‘wiggles’ in
response to bursts of advertising are big wiggles or little wiggles in relation
to media expenditure. There is absolutely no need to understand the mathematics
– the awareness index is a measure of the efficiency of the ad in generating
upward movements on the ‘ad awareness line.
Advertising models
are very unfashionable, and most people in the advertising business vigorously
deny believing one. Nevertheless, there exists in the industry a general set of
beliefs which I think amount to a mental model. Which we can call ‘Disbelieving AIDA.’
- Attention; To ensure customers visit the website and content attracts the user’s eye.
- Interest; Give users detailed information about product content; explain the advantages and why the consumer should buy from the website.
- Desire; Show that the business can solve the customers’ problem and meets their demands/wants/needs. This can be done by implementing incentives (such as discounts and special offers that cannot be obtained anywhere else) to encourage customers to purchase.
- Action; Get the customer to take action (regularly come back to visit the website, register as a website user and eventually buy the company’s products.
The AIDA model had
suggested that there was something called ‘attention’ which advertising had to
gain en route to generating ‘desire’, which developed in advance of ‘action’.
Most British researchers believed that this model had been discredited – but
specifically that it was the ‘attention’ part which was wrong, because this was
measured by ‘ad awareness’, and empirically this did not seem to correlate with
attitudes or attitude shifts.
There is another
technical difficulty which pushed researchers in the wrong direction.
This led to the
following views about research and advertising:
- We shouldn’t worry too much about ‘gaining attention’ – rather concentrate on generating ‘desire’ for the brand.
- Since ‘ad awareness’ was a suspect tracking measure, we should measure the strength and nature of communication in a more immediate environment via pre-testing.
- Tracking studies should measure movements in a series of image ‘pros and cons’ – which, weighted by importance to the consumer, should ideally ‘add up’ to an overall disposition to buy.
The levels of
‘advertising awareness’ obtained in any one product field depend entirely on
the question used, and particularly on the ‘trigger’. We reach quite different
conclusions about advertising awareness if we access it via the brand, the
creative content, a slogan, or the product field. If we wanted to find whether
a person had ever given ‘attention’ to a commercial, we would have to try all
these triggers, show the ad, and perhaps see if a hypnotherapist could release
any forgotten memories. But wouldn’t that be a pointless exercise? Because we
would then end up with something rather close to ‘coverage’ which we can obtain
more simply by analysing BARB data.
What all these
different ‘ad awareness’ questions really measure, and what matters, is how
advertising memories are accessed – the degree to which they are brought to
mind by the relevant trigger. They measure associations.
Generally the
relevant trigger is the brand. Subjectively this makes sense, since the other
tracking measures concern awareness of the brand and attitudes to the brand –
and purchasing decisions are normally prompted by the brand.
For fast-moving consumer
goods, I doubt whether it is in general very useful to think of a phase of
‘desire’ which lies between awareness of advertising claims and buying
behaviour. Generating ‘desire’ for the brand implies generating awareness of an
advertising claim, and having it accepted as both relevant and credible. And
the advertising industry has tried hard to produce positive movements on
relevant brand attitude statements.
For fast-moving consumer goods, however, there is a very
distinctive pattern. The statements on a brand attitude grid can be ranked from
the purely descriptive at one end of the spectrum to the purely evaluative at
the other. The statements towards the descriptive end respond readily, but the
evaluative ones are hard to move via advertising. The evaluative statements, on
the other hand, actually respond readily to changes in purchase levels, caused
by other factors such as promotional activity.
All of which implies that you can make consumers
aware of a claim via advertising and either have them perceive it as highly
relevant or perceive it as credible, but not both unless there is an actual
increase in purchasing of the brand.
We can, if we wish, insist on trying to generate
‘desire’. We can say that it is our firm intention to find a claim which is
both credible and relevant, and this will then generate a small but positive
change in attitudes and purchasing behaviour very rapidly. ‘Rapidly’ because
fmcg products have a short purchase cycle and ‘small’ because sales of
well-known brands do not usually respond massively.
“Making
Tracking Useful Again”
(Neil Coburn – Admap Magazine, 1999 – WARC)
Ad and brand
tracking studies claim a major share of the market research budgets for many
brands, and rightly so, since when used intelligently, they can provide a
wealth of information for the marketer.
As well as for
short-term evaluation of advertising and media expenditure, there are signs of
a trend towards increasingly all-embracing tracking studies. In addition to ad
response measures, these include a wide range of brand measures, some
short-term, and some with a longer-term perspective. The aim of this is no
doubt to make the research budget work harder, perhaps obviating the need for
expensive usage and attitude studies, image studies, or communication tests.
Whether this is realistic or feasible does, however, need to be considered
carefully.
When well designed and well
analysed, tracking studies can provide a mine, in some cases a goldmine, of
information for the client – not only for short-term evaluation, but for
longer-term strategic purposes. When properly designed around the brand
strategy and objectives, they can be genuinely helpful in, for example,
explaining why a brand is in decline and what action should be taken,
or indeed what are the reasons for an upturn in a brand’s fortunes. In order to
do this, The Research Business International argues that one needs to move away
from standardisation. We need to accept that there are no ‘magic numbers’ that
apply to all brands in all markets, and instead design the study around what we
know about how the specific market works, and the brand strategies employed.
Researchers are strongly
recommended to embrace multimedia campaigns – not only new media, but
print and radio as well, as well as a strong focus on (terrestrial) TV
campaigns, against current media trends, planning and management strategies and the key initial goals of the organisation.
Originally used in
qualitative research, the thinking was then applied to ad hoc quantitative
research, and now forms part of thinking on tracking. It addresses the desire
expressed in our research exercise among clients and planners for tracking that
better reflects their specific brand strategies. The opportunities
presented by new media and better media planning make market segmentation
easier and more cost-effective than ever before.
The tracking studies template consists
of a series of building blocks, each of which has a specific function. Some
questions are standard, whereas others are tailor-made for the market. These
are as follows;
- Campaign Registration: The traditional tracking measure of prompted ad awareness can provide a useful measure of ‘adstock’ – the cumulative effect of successive campaigns over time – particularly for TV campaigns, and is also reasonably dynamic. On its own, however, it does not provide a measure of how many people have been reached by the current campaign across the whole media mix, which is what clients want to evaluate. Campaign registration is the first ‘hurdle’ that a campaign needs to meet. Irrespective of how many different media are employed, the first thing we should know is what proportion of the target audience is being reached by any element of the campaign, and therefore has the potential to take away the desired consumer response. We define this by asking the client: ‘What do you want people to come away from the advertising thinking, feeling, saying or even doing?’
The second element
of campaign registration is at the media-specific level: how many people are
being reached by each distinct medium?
- Campaign Effectiveness: The campaign effectiveness rating quantifies the proportion of the target audience that any element of the campaign is affecting in the desired way. It is therefore based on the desired consumer response for the campaign as a whole, and so reflects the core brand strategy. Qualifying to be included in the ‘campaign effective’ group could be something very rational, such as Virgin Trains offering lower prices for advance bookings; or more emotional, such as Egg’s launch campaign which, via a multi-media approach, aimed to be seen as fresh, open and honest. Either way, in analysis, it is the proportion who qualify at any stage during the interview – i.e. holistically.
- Ad Effectiveness: For the main media in the campaign we can calculate an ad effectiveness rating, which works in a similar way to the campaign effectiveness rating.
- The Ad Response Pattern: The ad response pattern explains the nature of ad response in detail, which enables us to provide diagnostic guidance for future executions. By ‘ad’ we mean any communication we wish to diagnose, be it above-the-line, direct mail, or other marketing initiative, subject to the overall questionnaire length being kept within realistic limits. The ad response pattern attempts to go further than those methods that concentrate on three or four set models of ad response. In addition, within the broad category of ‘involvement’ it aims to understand the nature of involvement, and also the depth of emotional response.
In interpreting the
results of such questions, it is critical that we do not expect all ads to
perform well across all attributes. We are essentially answering the question:
what elements of the desired response are getting through, and which aren’t?
And can we identify the ways in which certain elements are or are not working?
The brand measures within 360, brand familiarity, brand
image and the brand relationship, are in many ways the most important set of
measures, since they will indicate whether the ultimate aim of the marketing
activity is being met.
- Brand Familiarity is the first category of brand measures. It includes spontaneous and prompted brand awareness, and also measures of the quality of awareness, and brand familiarity.
- Brand Image has traditionally been a relatively unhelpful element in tracking studies. There are two reasons for this. First, historically, image has tended to focus mainly on the functional aspects of the brand, and ignore the emotional. We are therefore careful to measure image in both functional and emotional terms, based on our specific understanding of the market in question. The second reason why brand image has been unhelpful is due to the expectations placed upon it. Lack of positive movement of image attributes often disappoints presentation audiences, and yet the evidence across many markets is that functional image tends to move only slowly, with often a year or more elapsing before signs of progress are apparent.
- Brand Relationship: The final, ultimate measure of the brand is the brand relationship itself. Many research companies measure the brand relationship by using some sort of scaled question of consideration, disposition or commitment. We would argue that such questions are often too general, in that they fail to take into account the differences in brand choice people make in different need states. Standardised scales also have a drawback in that they often fail to take into account the very different circumstances that apply to repertoire versus non-repertoire markets. The way we measure the brand relationship is shown in Exhibits 2 and 3 (shown below)
Having designed a tracking study that reflects the brand
strategy, the desired response to the advertising, and the media plan, it is up
to the analysts to make the results work hard and to help understand what is
really happening in the market, and where the opportunities lie.
Analysis of all the tracking data within need.state allows us
to get closer to where the ups and downs of a brand’s fortunes are coming from,
and often tells us much more than if we had only overall brand consideration
measures.
Analysis within commitment groups – the committed core, the
repertoire users, the rejectors – allows us to understand how the brand
strategies for different groups are (or aren’t) working, and what levers might
turn a repertoire user into a committed core user.
We should also accept that although they are potential
goldmines of information and understanding, there are limits to
what even the best designed tracking studies can do. Quantitative tracking can
be complemented by qualitative ‘tracking’ on perhaps a six-monthly basis, which
can help explore the market from a more open perspective, and prevent tunnel
vision.
Tracking studies themselves should adapt to the changing
marketing environment, and although one needs carefully to consider the effects
of changes on continuity, continuity of now irrelevant measures is worse than
useless, even potentially dangerous.
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