Blog #3 Research methods in advertising

When it comes to advertising research the methods are endless. There are so many ways that marketers can research advertising from simply observing consumers to lengthy tests.  Researching advertising is the main way that advertisements have evolved. Pre-testing which can also be known as copy testing, is a form of research that predicts the performance of an advertisement and its success in the real world before it airs to the public. Pre-testing analyzes attention, brand loyalty motivation, communication between consumers and weather it is entertaining or informational. This for of research also breaks down the ads flow of attention and emotions the consumers will feel when seeing the ad.  Measuring the attention level is extremely important when it comes to pre-testing. This data collected tells us what parts of the ad consumers look it and which parts of the ad they ignore. Pre-testing can be extremely helpful for ads that are still rough drafts. It can tell us what else we need to put in the ad and what aspects of the ad need to be removed. 

            Another form of marketing research is called post-testing.  Post-testing provide either intervals or continuous research in the market.  They monitor a brand’s performance, including brand awareness, brand preference, product usage and attitudes consumers have towards the products and services. Some post-testing approaches track changes over time. It’s an easy way to tell the popularity of a product over a certain period of time.   Another method is a campaign, which is much larger and hands-on with the consumers. Mainly advertisers use post-testing to plan future advertising campaigns, so the approaches that provide the most detailed information on the accomplishments of the campaign are the ones that are typically used the most.  There are two main typed of post-testing campaigns.   The first is continuous tracking.  In continuous tracking is when the changes in advertising spending and compared to changes in brand awareness. Usually with these studies they will use the same group of people over a long period of time to track the changes.

This shows some of the information on poverty we can obtain from a census report

            All of these methods I have talked about are known as field methods. The other form of research methods is the desk method. The desk method involves documents from past studies and books written by experts on the matter.  When engaging in the desk method you take many different test results on a similar brand or product and compare them. The results from twenty years ago to date can be extremely helpful. This data can tell you how consumers needs and wants have changed.  As technology and the way we live changed so do our wants and needs.  As we find out what consumers needs and wants are now we can more heavily advertise towards those needs and wants. Many popular documents that researches use are government documents such has census reports, bulletins on labor and commerce and governments income reports.  All of these can tell use how things over time have changed.   

The census reports alone can tell us so many things. In a census we can learn all age groups living in an area, nationalities, and income of all the people in one town. Once we learn that we can then know if we need to advertise towards children or the elderly, African American or Mexican, and wealthy and poor.  Those are just to name a few.  If the census report has a high amount of children then for example, we can more heavily advertise products geared towards children on the local stations and in newspapers and magazines.  Not only can we advertise to children themselves, but we then know weather to advertise children’s products towards the parents for products that children are not as interested in directly, like children’s vitamins. 

This is an example of an ad for Children's vitamins geared towards parents.

            Advertising would not be what it is today without the research that has gone into it. You can say that advertising is one of the most innovative and ever changing businesses in our world today, next to technology. Advertising relates directly to the needs and wants of the consumers, and by studying the consumers over time we can tell how we need to approach our ads, and how we want to speak to the consumers.  

Sources: 

http://www.google.com/images

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1015078

Consumer Behavior 3 student edition 

Babin/Harris

Cengage.com

Blog #3 Theories in Advertising

When it comes to advertising and marketing there are many different approaches and theories on how the get the message across the table quickly and effectively.  One very known and fairly easy theory to advertising is buss marketing. Buzz marketing can be defined as an event or activity that generates attention, excitement and, information to the consumer.  It is usually something our of the ordinary that catches the consumers eye, but is not quite as crazy and out there as guerilla marketing.  A good analogy to explain buzz marketing that I found was, “Buzz marketing typically contains a shot of adrenaline with a chaser of product information”.  If buzz marketing is done effectively people will typically talk or write about it and the information can spread quickly, especially with the help of the Internet in our society.  With Buzz marketing the whole point is to catch the eye of the consumer by doing something out of the ordinary such as using crazy colors and eye catching graphics that may not have anything to do with the product. 

Another fascinating form of advertising is viral marketing.  Viral marketing can be defined as an attempt to deliver a message the spreads quickly and exponentially to consumers.  Its point is to make consumers want to tell other people about the advertisement and then it spreads by word of mouth, articles, and over the Internet. Viral marketing depends on a high pass along rate. It depends mainly on people “spreading the word”.    So then over time it starts to spread quickly from person to person, hence the name “viral marketing”.  Although viral marketing sounds easy, just make something interesting enough to talk about right? In reality, it is not that easy to make something so interesting that people want to talk about it among their families, friends, and coworkers.  So what makes viral marketing? It is made up of catchy songs, interesting punch lines, and unusual ways of passing off a message.  If have something unusual isn’t easy for the company to get across in their message another way to produce a successful viral message is relating to the consumer.  By having a realistic feel that people can relate to they will talk about it.  Something realistic can be as easy as a commercial for a cleaning product in the kitchen to clean the stove; everyone eventually has a dirt stovetop in his or her kitchen at some point.  

Click here for example of Viral Marketing 

47 Outrageous Viral Marketing examples 

Weather a company uses buzz marketing or viral marketing to get their message across they all have the same goal, to get consumers interested and talking about their product. This is called word-of-mouth.  Word-of-mouth is a result that happens when someone see’s something and then relays the message across to the people they are close to.  It is said to be “The most powerful medium on the planet”.  It’s crazy to think that something so simple as people talking can make or break the product.  One person talking badly about an advertisement to one of their friends can spread by word-of-mouth from one person to the next extremely quickly and then the advertisement then has a bad reputation.  It is the easiest way for companies to get to consumers, because it’s a persons natural way or relaying information. 

The last theory that I think worth mentioning is called the communication theory.  The theory of communication is simply sending out messages to consumers with information that is easy to read and easy to understand.  The goal of communication is to generate customer responses.  There are multiple customer responses depending on the degree of information presented.  The first customer response is creating brand awareness.  Brand awareness is making a consumer aware of a brand, their products, the benefits of the products, and what the product is used for.  When making a consumer aware of a product we must be careful in the way we present our information to them.  When presenting information in a television advertisement for example marketers must remember that not everyone is educated in the same way so they need to relay the information in an effective yet easy way.  After creating brand awareness the next response they are looking for is for the consumer to purchase the product. Once the customer purchases the product the company wants to for a long-term relationship with the consumer by providing good customer service and product quality.  

Click here for an example of Communication Marketing 

Sources:

http://www.slideshare.net/emakina/viral-marketing-theory

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/

http://www.slideshare.net/mcurphey/advertising-theory

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/viral-marketing-examples/

http://www.youtube.com