Helping To Control The Business – New Research Solutions
Neil Shepherd Smith, Technical Consultant to JICREG, gave a paper entitled “The creation of a currency – JICREG”. He related the history of how JICREG started; in 1989 there was no industry research for the regional press. A readership survey like the NRS for regional titles would have cost over £12m, so JICREG was formed to bring together the pieces of readership information which did exist and to present them in a standard form; these were then modelled to provide estimates.
At the time of the JICREG launch under 30% of regional newspapers had surveyed data, now over 40% of the regional newspapers on JICREG have surveyed as opposed to modelled data.
He outlined the latest development, which is for national newspaper and magazines to be added to allow the planning of combined national and regional press schedules. This allows readership figures for national publications, by demographic groups by postcode sector. JICREG are still waiting for final approval from the NRS before this can go ahead.
Doreen Dignan (O&M) gave a paper on interactive media; “Advertising by any other name would be as effective”. The influence and time spent with new media alternatives will increase, and agencies must think of new ways of communicating within these; “push out the boundaries”. She suggested that an informational kiosk, an interactive TV or an electronic shop front are messages of communication to consumers which are not ‘advertising’.
O&M has carried out research into these new media opportunities, from both the media and creative side. Focus groups were held to identify consumer resistance to developments and to explore the scale of the technological generation gap, and Leeds University Institute of Communications Studies helped, to answer some main questions;
How aware are consumers of the new? Is interactivity good or bad? What are the benefits and disadvantages? What are the roles and rules for advertising. One of the most fundamental findings of the research was that expectations are high. The world of technology is expected to change lives for the better.
Another important isssue is trust. O&M carried out specific research for Supernet, an Internet service provider which inlcuded BarclaySquare; the fact Barclays has put its name to the square is good because people are worried about spending money electronically. Barclay’s endorsement makes people more confident about spending money at the square. In the new world, established brands act as a familiar face, engendering trust.
This led Doreen to show the Sainsbury’s site, which is just Wine Direct; here she issued an important warning; the consumer expects the same of the brand on-line as they do in traditional media, and often expect more. She showed ExpressNet’s US site as an example of one which has maintained brand values and offered more. It has been a huge success, with 150,000 cardmembers enrolling the programme, and more than 15,000 new card applications.
She showed the Guinness site, created by O&M, The Local, which has the same brand association, “Pure Genius”. To ensure people did not leave the site empty handed, they put in a downloadable screensaver; this was appealing because it is a piece of brand communication that is selected by the user. Consumers request a piece of your advertising and then distribute it (by floppy disk); a “marketers dream come true”. Thouands of screensavers have been downloaded since July.
Conclusions were that new media communications are here to stay; consumer expectations are high and brand values take on increased significance in a world where trust is important.
Millward Brown and CIA presented a joint paper on “Effective Frequency on TV – Some Practical Lessons”. The two companies have been working together for the past year, and presented the results of this alliance.
Millward Brown have developed a model which converts media plans into advertising awareness; they have also found that an ads ability to generate awareness is closely related to its ability at generating sales. The model was adapted to take coverage and frequency data, easier for media planning. There were two steps; calculating effective frequency (allowing for the decaying effect of advertising) and secondly converting this to a response such as awareness.
The results found that each subsequent OTS generates less response than the previous one; this implies that media planners should try and avoid high frequencies if they want to generate awareness efficiently. Each ad has its own levels of awareness; some ads generated awareness very quickly with few OTS, others took much longer. The ad’s efficiency at generating awareness is calculated using FORCE; First OTS Response Created by the Execution. The steepness of the response is calculated into a single figure by looking at the response AFTER the first OTS. A curve can then be calculated.
As well as measuring response by ad, responsiveness amongst target audiences was also measured; preliminary results of the findings include that 8-15 year olds are more than three times as responsive to advertising as those 35+. ABC1s are on average 30% more responsive than C2DEs and men are 20% more responsive than women. The idea with FORCE is to pre-test the ad, to allow accurate media planning. CIA have asked their clients for historic tracking data to allow them to validate the theory behind FORCE and then to develop guidelines about how ad awareness builds.
The key finding of their joint research was that the lower frequencies are significantly more important than the higher frequences in driving awareness efficiently; diminishing returns set in from the first exposure. Anthony Jones of CIA MediaLab highlighted 5 things planners should consider.
- Know your Ad. Know how quickly it gets across to viewers; if no historical analysis or pre- testing is available, then compare it with others in the same market, or ones aimed at similar target markets. The major factor a planner can influence is the schedule construction.
- Know What is Really Happening to Your Frequency Distribution. Work out the actual frequency distributions of several different schedules and buy the best channel and daypart mix.
- Know Your Audience. Target audiences are very broad; if you are buying ABC1s there is a big difference between the chief executive of a multi-national company and a junior teacher.
- Know Where you are in Time. Know your ad awareness, and how quickly the execution will bring it back up to the desired level. This is vital when deciding when to go back on air, and at what weight.
- Know What Worked and What Did Not. Not enough live testing of strategies occurs.