AD Track Report
The Ad Track research evening was held on 13th June at the Arts Club, Dover Street, London. Mike Baker, Advertisement Marketing Controller at IPC, was the speaker.
Monitoring the effects of advertising in magazines is not an easy task when compared with television advertising. According to the Ad Track report ” The spends are often much lower than for TV and the exposure are lagged away from the actual insertion date, making any effects less immediate and therefore harder to quantify.”
IPC Magazines commissioned Ad Track 94 from Millward Brown with the specific objective of proving whether, across a broad cross section of mainstream brands, magazine advertising could drive up ad awareness and get people to consider buying the advertised brand.
Ad Track’s methodology was a continuous study, running for 48 weeks from January 17th to December 18th. The sample comprised: Women who had read a magazine in the past year which represents about 90% of all women and 200 interviews each week, or nearly 10,000 women over the year.
The sample was larger than a typical tracking study so that the target group would be thoroughly researched.
Over the course of the year 25 brands were tracked, 24 which spent significantly in magazines and one which, in the event, was only active on TV.
An example of the comparisons between TV and Print was demonstrated by Sure Sensive Deodorant. Separate TV and Print campaigns were run through 1994. 1411 TVRs were put behind the TV activity and the print execution ran in weekly and monthly magazines generating 330 GRPs. The print campaign achieved an above average awareness index of 25, the TV marginally below the norm of 13. The research found that more significantly, the purchase consideration shows a market uplift in line with the start of the print campaign without similar movements for the bursts of TV activity in the spring, summer or at the end of the year.
The conclusions reached by the Ad Track survey found that print is most effective when the reader is interested in the product field. “It must be remembered that because magazine readership is an active process, people will only read the ads if there is something in it for them.”
Television is viewed more passively, the initial exposure may be less effective than that to a print ad.
From the research carried out it is evident that both media have clear strengths which confirm that using mixed media campaigns can be highly successful. Print advertising can amplify a message, provide detail, reinforce a message or give examples or additional data. Also because of different weights of TV viewing there may be some people who recieve more exposures via print.
Ad Track 94 was set up with the specific objective of establishing whether, across a broad cross section of mainstream brands, magazine advertising could drive up ad awareness and get people to consider buying the brand.
The magazine advertisers have to earn the reader’s time and attention according to the report. This can be achieved by relating to something the reader is already interested in, by offering them added value.
The report concludes that these points make print advertising more complex to use, however this is the price to pay to harness the full potency of the medium.
Mike Baker concluded by saying that “people should think about the issue of print production in advance rather than it creeping up as an unexpected cost. For any heavy weight press activity agencies must pre plan.” Among questions from the floor Peter Bowman expressed concerns with the problems of cost. Mr Baker said that he thought the problems of cost never went away.
Geoff Wicken asked whether the industry were receptive to Ad Track. Mr Baker said that further fragmentation of television advertising now meant that an alternative route has become a topical issue.
A press release from the IPA has approved IPC’s Ad Track survey. The IPA Media Research Committee have awarded their first double star ‘seal of approval’ to the survey. Lynne Robinson. IPA Research Director, said: “The Ad Track survey provides a substantial contribution to media knowledge. IPC should be congratulated on the investment they have made in this survey.”
Mike Baker said “I view the media appraisals as a very valuable seal of approval – it definitely gives us extra credibility in presenting the Survey to clients and agencies.”