MRG Evening Meeting – First Impressions – The GMTV Recall Study
The Media Research Group (MRG) Evening Meeting, held at Leo Burnett earlier this week, addressed what is perhaps one of the most fundamental questions in the world of advertising: To what extent do people actually remember adverts and how can their recall be increased?
To address these very questions GMTV commissioned Continental Research to conduct a week long study of ad recall across GMTV and the ITV evening schedule. Caroline Bell, head of research at GMTV, presented the results to the MRG. The research, says Bell, was designed to provide some clues about the effectiveness of the breakfast time slot, a relatively new ITV day-part, and to offer some rules of thumb for scheduling across GMTV and ITV. It was not meant to criticise ITV or to tell advertisers to put all of their money into GMTV, says Bell.
The survey was conducted across almost 2,000 London-based housewives aged 25-54; this category accounts for 40% of the GMTV audience and is responsible for 56% of UK expenditure on food and groceries. London was chosen as a survey region as it is a typically weak area for GMTV.
The recall results were divided between those women who saw all the ad break and those who only saw part of the break – 20% and 50% respectively. As might be expected, the percentage of recall was higher for GMTV and ITV by those who had watched the whole break, at 41%, than it was by people who had seen part of the break (29%). The results also showed that people have a higher recall of ads that promote things they are interested in and which they might enjoy – chocolate and holidays were given as examples of this. Entertainment ads do particularly well with a 38% recall. Finance and insurance, considered ‘the boring things in life’, typically generated a lower percentage of recall.
Longer ads were shown to increase recall fairly significantly: ads of 30 seconds or less drew a recall of 30%; 30 second ads had a recall of 44% and ads longer than 30 seconds pushed recall up to 51%. Centre breaks (44% recall) were found to be more effective than end breaks (28%) and the second ad in the break proved more memorable than those in other positions.
Humour in adverts helps aid recall a little, as does the appearance of celebrities. However, ads with a strong reliance on image and style were found to be less effective than those with a strong practical content. Music, voiceover and storyline (or lack of these) did not seem to make a great deal of difference to recall.
Overall, in terms of recall comparisons between ITV and GMTV, GMTV came out favourably with a total average recall of 32%; ITV’s recall averaged 25%. The total average recall stood at 29%. These are averages were taken across people who saw all of the commercial break and those who only saw a part of the break. In fact, the research showed a higher degree of recall on GMTV whichever way the data were analysed, said Bell. However, Bell noted that when ads are placed on GMTV and ITV, the two help boost each other’s recall.
A further study is planned for later in the year and will include more dayparts, more channels and an all adult sample.