MEASURING ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS: POST-TESTING METHODS

It is applied after the advertisement has ended to find out how far advertising has been successful. The objective of advertising is to arouse consumer awareness, his interest, desire and develop his attitude to the product. These are

• recognition tests,
• recall tests,
• attitude change,
• sales and recognition tests

Recognition test:

It is developed by Danial Starch. It measures the readership of printed advertisements. It is also called the readership test. It is based on the assumption that there is a high correlation between the reading of the advertisement and the purchase of the product. A particular advertisement may be examined by sending the whole newspaper or magazine wherein it is published. Afterwards readers are approached to find out whether they have read the advertisements or not.

The percentage of readership who have seen the advertisement and remember it, who recall seeing or reading any part of it, identifying the product and brand, and who reported reading at least one half of the advertisement is calculated. The relationship between readers per rupee and the median readers per rupee can be established. The advantage is that it measures something which has been realized under normal conditions. The recognition tests show the importance of each type of advertisement on the basis of the readership test. This is an uncontrolled interview and suffers from the problems of uncontrolled techniques of examination.

Recall Tests

A recall test depends on the memory of the respondents. This test is applied to measure the impression made by an advertisement on the reader's mind. It is classified into two types – aided recall and unaided recall. Some have combined the two and made it a combined recall test.

• Aided Recall: It is used to measure the reading memory of magazine advertising impressions. It is necessary to use a large sample size for statistical reliability. The aided test measures television advertising. The interviewer may approach the respondents over the telephone or in person to find out something about their recall of the commercial. A radio advertisement may be given the aided recall test followed by an unaided question. For example: "What products have been advertised during the last two days?" Then the recall aid is provided by asking: 'Have you heard the advertisements of brand X? “The recall test may be administered immediately or two or three days after the exposure.
• Unaided Recall: Under this method, little or no aid is given. The purpose is to measure the penetration of the advertisement. Respondents are asked whether the advertisements included a particular picture or message. The name of the product is not given to the audience. They have to recall it themselves. If they do remember, it is established that there was some impact of the advertisement.
• Combined Recall Tests: It includes aided as well as unaided recall tests. This test was developed by Gallup and Robinson. Respondents are asked whether they have read the magazine or newspaper, or listened to the radio or watched television.

This technique involves following steps.

• The respondents should recall and describe correctly at least one editorial feature in the magazine or newspaper.
• They are handed a group of cards on which are printed the names of brands advertised in the issue. They are asked which of the brands were advertised in that issue.
• The respondents are questioned in depth to evaluate the accuracy of their recall.
• A copy of the magazine is given to the respondents. They are asked whether they have seen the advertisement: for the first time or seen it a second or third time. The reply that they have seen it a second time or more often is discarded from the recall test because they are included under the Proven Name Registration (PNR). The information on age, sex, education, occupation, etc. may establish a relationship between these factors and recall. This method measures the recall of qualified readers to assess the depth of penetration achieved by the advertised message.

The limitation of the test is the heavy cost involved in the study. It is affected by the variation in human memory. The audience may recall because it has seen the previous advertisements of the product.

Attitude Change

There are several techniques for the measurement of attitude change after the advertising has ended. These techniques are as follows:

• Semantic differential,
• Likert scale,
• Ranking techniques and
• Projective technique.

(i) Semantic Differential: It is used to measure attitude in the field of marketing and advertising research. It uses a bi-polar (opposite) adjective statement about the subject of evaluation. The attitude is measured in the light of some objectives. The two-way scale is used for the purpose. The neutral is mid-point, while the three points on both the sides of the neutral point, on the same scale, provide the degree of favourable and unfavourable characteristics. The semantic differential is illustrated below.

SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIALS

Known ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- unknown

Informative.------------------------------------------------------------------.      Un informative

Realistic-----------------------------------------------------------------------------  Unrealistic

Persuasive ---------------------------------------------------------------------   Not persuasive

Instructive -------------------------------------------------------------------------   Destructive

Effective ---------------------------------------------------------------------------    Ineffective

Useless-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Useful

The above points are merely illustrative. Depending upon the characteristics and features of an advertisement more number of points may also be used.

(ii) The Likert Scale: The Likert scale is used to measure audience attitude to advertisements. A series of statements are described to measure the attributes of the advertisement. Only the relevant statements are used for the purpose. Each statement is measured on a five-point scale. It is being illustrated as follows:

THE LIKERT SCALE

Particulars	Strongly agree	Agree	Uncertain	Disagree	Strongly disagree
Radio advertising has been heard by a majority of the population.
Nirma Advertisement appealed to people who have accepted it.
Repetition of advertisement has reminded people about the product

 (iii) Ranking techniques: The preferences to several types of advertisements are ranked to find out the place of a particular advertisement among the several advertisements. An advertisement of one product can be measured with the advertisements of other products taken together. This is done to find out the effectiveness of the advertisement in a competitive atmosphere. The winner may be given rank 1 and loser is given rank 5. The ranking is based on awareness, interest, attitude change, attractiveness, usefulness, entertaining respect, effectiveness, etc. A sufficient number of consumers are selected for a sample survey. The overall rank is summed up to determine the final rank of the advertisement of the brand.

(iv) Projective Techniques: It is used to measure attitude change. Association techniques, completion techniques, construction techniques and expressive techniques are used to measure the change in attitude.

Sales Test

It is designed to evaluate the effects of advertising on the purchase behaviour of the consumer. It is successfully applied to examine the consumer behaviour to advertisements of consumption goods. Sales are effected after creating an image of and interest in, the product. With the help of sales audit and audience response, it is possible to evaluate the effects of advertising on sales. There are generally three types of sales tests, viz.,

• Measure of past sales,
• Field experiments, and
• Matched samples.

(i) Measure of Past Sales: Advertising and sales are correlated by using the past sales data. The past data on sales are diversified and their advertising expenses are correlated to establish their relationship Sales data for the past ten years as well as the advertising expenses are collected and tabulated to establish the correlation between the sales volume and advertising expenses. All other factors influencing sales are also correlated with the sales. The differences between their correlations show the importance of each individual factor influencing sales.

(ii) Field Experiments: Field experiments may show the extent to which a particular advertising campaign has affected sales. The whole market may be divided into test and control areas. One treatment may be randomly administered to each area to know how a particular factor has influenced the sales in that area. The different treatments may be used to eliminate irrelevant variables. The results of each variable are recorded for different periods. These figures give the total impact of advertising on sales.

(iii) Matched Samples: The respondents belonging to the same age, educational status, occupation, sex, etc. are selected for comparison of advertising effectiveness. They are matched in every respect but not for the test treatment. One group has seen the advertisements and other group has not seen the advertisements. The sales of the treated group should he higher than those of the not-treated group. This would show the difference between the sale of the advertised products and of the non-advertised products.