Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

All advertising efforts are directed mainly towards the achievement of business, marketing and advertising objectives i.e., to increase the sales turnover and thus to market the maximum profit. The advertiser spends lakhs of rupees in to this advertising activity. In the background of all these efforts, is an attempt to attract the customer towards the product through advertising. As soon as the advertising campaign is over, a need is generally arisen to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Whether, it has achieved the desired results i.e. desired sales profitability or results in terms the change in customer’ behaviour in favour of the company’s product which will naturally, affect the future sale of the product.

In order to measure the effectiveness of advertising copy, two types of tests pretests and post tests- can be undertaken. Pretests are generally conducted in the beginning of the creation process or at the end of creation process or production stage. There are several pre and post tests techniques to measure the effectiveness of the advertising copy.

The effectiveness of advertising in a particular media may also be measured in any of the following ways – (a) by giving different addresses to different media, (b) different newspapers may be selected for advertisements of different departments, (c) coupon blank etc. May be provided with the advertisement or (d) enquiry from consumers should mention the name of the source of information. The technique is known as keying the advertising.

Thus in measuring the effectiveness of advertising we include measuring of the effectiveness of advertising campaign, advertising copy and the effectiveness of individual media. This chapter deals these three problems.

Importance of measuring the Effectiveness of Advertising

(1) It acts as a Safety measure

Testing effectiveness of advertising helps in finding out ineffective advertisement and advertising campaigns. It facilitates timely adjustments in advertising to make advertising consumer oriented and result oriented. Thus waste of money in faulty advertising can be avoided.

(2) Provides feed back for remedial measures

Testing effectiveness of advertising provides useful information to the advertisers to take remedial steps against ineffective advertisements.

(3) Avoids possible failure

Advertisers are not sure of results of advertising from a particular advertising campaign. Evaluating advertising effective helps in estimating the results in order to avoid complete loss.

(4) To justify the Investment in Advertising

The expenditure on advertisement is considered to be an investment. The investment in advertising is a marketing investment and its objectives should be spelt out clearly indicating the results expected from the campaign. The rate and size of return should be determined in advance. If the expected rate of return is achieved in terms of additional profits, the advertisement can be considered as effective one.

(5) To know the communication Effect

The effectiveness of the advertisement can be measured in terms of their communication effects on the target consumers or audience. The main purpose of advertising is communicated the general public, and existing and prospective consumers, various information about the product and the company. It is therefore desirable to seek post measurements of advertising in order to determine whether advertisement have been seen or heard or in other words whether they have communicated the theme, message or appeal of the advertising.

(6) Compare two markets

Under this procedure, advertising is published in test markets and results are contrasted with other. Markets – so called control markets – which have had the regular advertising programme. The measurements made to determine results may be measurements of change in sales, change in consumer attitudes, changes in dealer display. and so on depending upon the objectives sought by the advertiser.