Does advertising pre-testing have merit?

The range of speakers represented the full spectrum of marketing professionals, including creatives, researchers and planners. The perspectives of both clients and marketing practitioners were well addressed.

Definite challenge

Says Jacqui Greeff, joint managing partner of Johannesburg-based research agency De Facto, who was the only South African delegate, “The WARC Pre-Testing conference raised issues which pose a definite challenge to the local industry. Ad pre-testing has always been a contentious subject but never more so than today, given the increasing client demand for marketing accountability and the declining focus on the previously all-important TV commercial.

“So the changing requirements of pre-testing are for more stringent and precise measurement and for adaptation to a broader range of marketing tools. And yet, pre-testing was observed by some of these experts as being done less rather than more frequently in recent years.”

Speakers representing research users highlighted the following problems surrounding pre-testing:

• Less and less time allowed in the overall process for pre-testing.
  
• Qualitative (mainly focus groups) becomes the default technique because of time constraints, usually with unsatisfactory results.
  
• Advertising agencies own the timing plan, not clients, yet agencies are less likely to be pro-testing than clients.
  
• Ad agencies remain resistant to pre-testing.
  
• Pre-testing is not necessarily formalised into the communication development process.
  
• The research industry is low on self-promotion and has offered no overt solutions for research in the digital age.
  
• Pre-test results are at risk of being analysed in “win or lose” terms
  
• Pre-testing tools are not sensitive enough to adequately assess great, especially break-through ideas

The following questions were posed to the research industry:

• How to effectively test media innovations such as live ads?
  
• How to effectively test customer engagement campaigns?
  
• How to allow for the changing consumption of media? (less time and energy, more tech focused)

Having thrown down the proverbial gauntlet, the ad agency and client speakers offered some of their own suggestions for resolution before giving the stage to the research professionals.

Solutions

Solutions included changing the mind set:

• Formalise pre-testing into the process.
  
• Make it a KPI (key performance indicator).
  
• Get buy-in from senior management on the client side regarding the importance and value of pre-testing
  
• Understand that pre-test results can be shades of grey, not necessarily black and white.
  
• Understand that good pre-testing aims to enhance creative thinking but does not replace it.

Specific comments on digital communication and testing were:

• Test online where possible, with obvious time benefits.
  
• Pre-testing digital communication can take the form of ongoing interactive testing or fine-tuning en-route.

However, most delegates were waiting eagerly for discussion on tangible improvements to broad-based pre-testing mechanics. These finally emerged as:

• Test multiple elements of a campaign, not just the TVC, as we know that effect is multiplied by diverse media use.
  
• Include means of determining the relative contribution of each campaign element.
  
• Retain previously standard measures which remain relevant eg brand linkage, visibility, talkability. In other words, don’t discard what still works.
  
• Measure the emotional response as well as the cognitive response.

Amply promoted

The latter point is one which has been amply promoted by local South African agencies in recent years, says Greeff. But the really important question is how best to do this. Some saw this emotional measurement as simply one of many needed to get an all-round view of the communication. They appear to be using standard (direct) questioning to achieve their measures of emotion.

According to Greeff, the best solution raised was to incorporate qualitative-type questioning into quantitative pre-testing, most specifically in the form of projective questions.

Naturally, this raises several challenges for researchers with regard to administering and analysing. In-roads have been made by some researchers in terms of standardised questions with pre-coded responses/association sets. Findings thus far have been encouraging with a better balance of response to test material and greater insight into what really makes a piece of communication turn its audience on or off.

For more information outcomes and impressions of the WARC Pre Testing Conference and South African solutions, contact Greeff on +27 (0)11 886 1106 or email .