Now, I realize that I could be accused based on this analysis of advertising effectiveness of being a Luddite, or a spoilsport, or, worst of all, that I don’t get it.

I do understand that advertising on the big game is a different aspect of marketing, one unto itself, and that such advertising might or ought not be subjected to the same rigorous standards that most marketing campaigns. Granted!

I’m not suggesting that creative, innovative, splashy ads have no place in mass media (or elsewhere). I’m also reminded of the famous (or infamous) Apple ad in 1984. One mysterious and inscrutable ad–huge response.

But does the response to one ad, more than twenty-five years ago, warrant so many imitators? I postulate not.

Years ago I did a project for my then employer where I looked at direct marketing direct response campaigns (television based). I trekked into the archive of the Direct Marketing Association and spent several days pouring through the records of ECHO award winners. I came across Ginsu knives ads, which, if you consumed television in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you simply could not avoid. Cheesy, cheery, bombastic and yes, annoying in many ways, literally millions of sets of Ginsu knives were snapped up by enthralled consumers.

In the advertising world, the Ginsu ads were the epitome of crass, bottom-of-the-barrel ads, recalling state fair sideshows, strip joints, and, gasp!, local car dealer ads. But they worked. And phenomenally well.

I had personally found these ads both humorous and repulsive, part of me knowing that the ads were so pushy, so “out there,” as to be implausible, a come-on the likes of P.T.Barnum, while another part of me was so enthralled that I almost reached for the phone to place my order. I never did, but I remember considering the possibility.

Millions of other consumers did not resist and made the call.

This finding has stuck with me. Not as an argument that direct response come-ons are the best form of advertising, or that ads must be ruthlessly measured against direct sales, but that ads have to have some grounding in the realities of the marketplace rather than simply satisfying the egos of those involved in making them.

As a market researcher, my dictum is test, test, test. Find out if a proposed ad is doing what it is intended to do. Then, if it makes a big splash, or makes it into the popular lexicon as “Where’s the beef?” and “Can you hear me now?” have do, so much the better.

But cover the fundamentals first.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

Here’s my take on the best ad in the big game–the Dodge Charger ad late in the second quarter.

Oh, Oh, politically incorrect.

I know the ad is taking heat. Sexist, discriminatory, etc.

From a marketing perspective, amazingly well targeted.

Young married (or involved) men. Wanting to break out a little bit. So why not a muscle car?

Why not indeed?

To those who dis the ad: You are not the target market for a Charger.

But I’ll bet you understood what was being advertised and what was being sold.

The campaign that is getting the buzz (in the auto category) from the big game is Hyundai, based on a measurement of web hits. But does this tell the whole story?

No.

According to autospies.com, Hyundai saw a bump in web traffic of 91%, while Dodge Charger saw a modest 16%.

What these numbers do not reflect (at least not yet) is the nature of the traffic. A 16% increase in traffic, if close to 100% target market audience, beats a 91% bump in traffic, if it is only comprised on 15% or so of the target market. (Of course, we might add to the discussion the specificity of the targeting in the Charger ad compared to the Hyundai ads. Or that Hyundai ran multiple ads compared to the one for the Charger…………..but at the moment such discussions are beside the point).

As market researchers, we are well aware that statistics can say whatever we (or whoever) might want them to say.

Our work is to ferret out the reality of market dynamics to best serve our employers. And hopefully, to present that reality in a compelling, meaningful, and salient manner. This often means eschewing common knowledge and wisdom and digging deep for the real story.

Clios are adorable; increased traffic a great first step; however, the end point is increased sales, revenue and profit.

As Rod Tidwell said, “Show me the money!”

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

Sure, we can name exceptions, the ads that in current parlance, “go viral,” such as the Wendy’s series on “Where’s the beef?” or the Verizon Wireless’ series with “Can you hear me now?”

It is all too easy (and natural I might add) for managers to fall into the trap of “well, I get it, so everyone else will get it as well.”

Not true.

If you are reading this, you have defined yourself as out of the mainstream. You probably pay close attention to marketing, what it looks like, how it works, who is (and who is not) good at it. Unless your company’s target market are people with the same demographics as management, there is a high likelihood that your target market won’t get it.

That’s why ad testing is so critical. Companies need to know, not guess, whether their target markets “get” the ad.

Back to the big game.

You’re going to spend $3,000,000 for airing the ad.

You’re going to spend what, let’s say, $3,000,000 to make the ad.

What would stop you from spending $100,000 to $150,000 to test the ad?

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

But it happens all the time.

Now, in the words of Howard Jones, no one really is to blame.

Ads don’t get tested for lots of seemingly valid reasons. Reasons like it was not ready on time or we don’t want to let the cat out of the bag.

In my experience, ads often are not subject to test because the ad agency has the ear of executives and the ad agency does not want the ad tested. There is always a valid reason why.

Can you say Clio award?

When I see a beautiful ad, lots of whiz-bang, lots of dollars spent, really really cool, but I cannot figure out what product or service is being sold, my instinctive response is the ad agency, not the client’s marketing department, is running this show.

Bottom line: ads have to work–that is, they have to work at selling or promoting a company’s brand, or products, or services. Isn’t increasing the bottom line the reason a company is spending money doing advertising?

Company’s test and measure almost everything these days.

It’s time for advertising to be subjected to the same rigorous standards.

More to follow.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

So the big football day has come and gone. As well as all those $3 million per minute ads.

Having read that people are more attuned to the ads than the game, I watched with great interest the reaction to the latest offerings from Madison Avenue among the admittedly unscientifically selected group of guys at a game party.

Our first reaction? What was with all those ads featuring guys in their underwear???

And more salient to the marketing community, what in the heck were those ads trying to sell?

Now the group of guys gathered for the party were diverse in age (from early 20s to late 50s) and well-educated (college and graduate degrees).

Not infrequently during the ads, we looked at each other in bemusement, trying to decide what in fact some of these ads were for. That is, was the product or service they were trying to promote.

We didn’t know.

Years ago I did a project for a major U.S. corporation who spent billions per year on television. Their brand would appear to be ubiquitous.

The assignment was to show 30 second rough spots of television executions and debrief the respondents about them. The respondents were drawn from a middle-class targeted shopping mall in Connecticut.

I remember playing the ads, in which this company’s logo and name appeared exclusively on-screen for the last eight seconds of each commercial. I played each ad twice for each respondent.

The first two questions I asked were: what was this ad all about and then was company was it an ad for?

About one in four respondents could recall the name of the company. And this company was one of the largest buyers of television advertising at the time and had been so for years.

If they got such poor recall with a consumer’s full attention and after years of promoting their brand and logo, imagine the potential level of recall for ads from companies spending much less.

More to follow.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

“We need to understand our customers better. We need to do some segmentation.”

Have you ever been on the receiving end of such a comment, usually from a senior manager or company executive?

I have.

As market researchers, our first instinct probably is (and should be) to go Socratic and answer this question with a question of our own:

“What are you thinking of when you say we need some market segmentation?”

Market researchers are often highly trained in segmentation as a market research process. The term evokes a specific form of research and analysis. But in marketing circles in general, and certainly in corporate management outside of marketing, market segmentation has a plethora of meanings, from very simple (to market researchers) analysis all the way up to sophisticated blending of qualitative and quantitative market research, analysis and statistical modeling. Whew!

Quite often what I heard back in response to the question of what a manager meant by needing some market segmentation was really what is called stratification in market research circles.

This is the ordinary and customary ways of analyzing markets by simple demographic breaks, such as categories of age, education, income, etc.

While this is part and parcel of a market researcher’s stock in trade, I’ve heard it commonly referred to by managers as market segmentation. To them, each age group is a segment, while to a market researcher it is often much more interesting and productive to look across demographic variables in conjunction.

So when a manager answers my question by saying he or she wants to look at the markets by demographic strata, I again follow up by asking what prompts the question. Usually, the manager will have a specific issue or concern and by discussing this I can often give the manager better and more salient information and analysis. After all, I’ve been pouring over the market research in detail, while the manager may have only had time to give a report or executive summary a cursory look. By asking more questions I can be much more on target in providing the potential answers to the issues clients face.

More to follow.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

The moderator held up the storyboard we in the back room were all waiting for. The crunching of M&Ms(c), the giggling comments, the rustling of paper all stopped and the room came to a hush. Everyone held their breath to see how the respondents would react.

The moderator read the line, “We listen…,” and then the three supporting sentences and then asked for a yeah/nay/positive/negative vote as a first reaction. All eight hands shot into the air; the respondents smiled and laughed.

“So,” the moderator asked, “what attracts you about this tagline?”

“It’s exactly what I have experienced with them. They do listen. When I talk to one of their reps on the phone, they don’t rush me; they hear me out.”

“They try to understand what I need.”

“It says that they care, that they’ll take the time to listen.”

“That is just wonderful! How many companies actually do listen? All they seem to want to do is to talk at me, shout at me even; they don’t hear a word I say; they’re too busy trying to get me to pay attention to them.”

“Well,” said the moderator, “is to believeable for [Company name] to say that they listen?”

“Yes, yes, it is! Because they do. They don’t rush to judgment. They hear me out.”

“That’s been my experience with them as well, even though I haven’t had to call them for anything. They take care of business; they do things right; they’re easy to work with. That says that they listen, just as the line suggests.”

By now, the observers in the back room where practically glued to the one-way mirror, watching and listening intently. We had clearly struck something powerful here. The very words that had previously caused respondents to react so negatively, such as “we care,” were now being played back in total positivity simply by changing the word “care” to “listen.”

Best of all, listen implied that the company cared, that they were on the consumer’s side, that they truly wanted what was best for the customer.

Two words–two opposite reactions.

What could some wordsmithing do for your company’s marketing materials?

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

“Boy, they sure threw up on that one,” one of the team members declared.

“Yes, they did. But remember the passion it aroused. Usually, consumers who don’t like a tagline are just ho-hum about it. With this one, the reaction was virulent. Let’s think about how we can turn it around into a phrase that will evoke the same passion, only in a positive direction.”

The research and management team, together with representatives from the ad agency, were all gathered in the same focus group room where we had just observed a drubbing of one of the taglines we were testing. Several had scored well with consumers, but only the tagline suggesting that the company cared about consumers had raised howls (either positive or negative).

“Okay,” said the team leader. “What else rung the bell?”

“Well, the respondents seemed to really like the stories about our customer service reps helping members, going the extra mile and all that. And a couple have echoed these sentiments with their own stores of extraordinary treatment by the reps. Maybe there is a thread we can use from that discussion.”

A few other suggestions surfaced from several other team members and then……silence. The team seemed stuck for an answer.

“I want to revisit the essence of the reaction to the customer service stories. Alright, telling consumers that this shows we care doesn’t work. We got that in spades. But is that really the essence of what those stories represent? Is a feeling of being cared for the essence, the core of it, or is there another emotion that is really being evoked by the stories?”

“So what did the respondents really say? What was their point? They object greatly to calling it caring, but how would they express it?”

“What I heard the respondents say is that they were heard—they weren’t rushed through the call—there was no sense that the rep wanted to get them off the phone. They got to explain their problem without being harried.”

“And I heard a sense of relief, an expression that they were going to be helped.”

“Then how about using ‘help’ in the tagline?  We help.”

“Ummmmmm. Something about that just doesn’t sing.” Heads nodded around the table.

“We need something with more punch.”

“Wait a minute. The respondents said they were being heard by the reps. We can’t use that; it doesn’t fit. But wouldn’t that say that the reps are really listening to the customers?”

“Yes! How about ‘We listen’?”

“Let’s try that in the next group and see how the respondents react.”

More to follow.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

Kudos to AllState Insurance for their brand/attribute campaign featuring Dennis Haysbert. I saw one of the newer executions this week and was solidly impressed by their positioning on what was certainly a market research-driven discovery.

“Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (the old Neil Sedaka chestnut) plays in the background of the ad (titled “Dance”), while Haysbert intones about how AllState will handle the process of switching new customers to AllState without the consumer having to go through the dreaded “break up” call with their current insurer.

I could just imagine the focus groups. Consider a recruit of consumers who are unhappy with their current insurance suppliers and are considering changing. After probing why they are dissatisfied with their carriers, the moderator asks, “well then, if you’re unhappy with your current supplier, what keeps you from switching?”

“Well, who knows if it’s really worth it?” is the response, quickly followed by, “I’ve heard horror stories from friends about other carriers—they all seem pretty bad.”

The moderator then asks to which companies they might consider switching. Presumably, AllState was one of the mentions (I’d have ensured this in the screener).

“What keeps you from simply checking them out?” the moderator poses.

“I would, but it’s such a hassle to switch,” says one respondent, as others nod around the table.

“Hassle? What hassles do you encounter?”

“Oh, the paperwork!” “Changing the electronic fund transfer.” “Having to find a new agent.” More “hassles” follow.

The moderator probes again. “How about the process of changing itself? What other hassles do you encounter in trying to switch?”

“Oh, I hate to say it, but I tried to switch once, and my carrier put up such a fuss and badgered me into staying. I just couldn’t seem to get rid of them…………….”

Pure research gold!

I’m staying tuned to see how AllState fares with this clever positioning in the market.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

“No way!! They don’t care! They’re a [financial institution]! All they want is money. They don’t give a damn about us.”

Anger palpably crackled in the focus group room as respondents vehemently added to this sentiment.

The positioning statement being tested read something to the effect of: [Company] cares! That’s why we found a way to bring you a [product] that………….”

The respondents evaluating the statements went berserk. Some were even offended.

“How dare they say they care?”

“They’re loan sharks!”

The back room went into a state of shock. Everyone observing the groups fell silent. The team building toward a positioning statement for the firm had clearly struck a major nerve with customers, but in the wrong direction, rather than the intended (or hoped-for) response.

The power of a single word had overwhelmed us all. It was clear to everyone on the team that “care” had to go, but there was a yet unarticulated sense that we had tapped into something with great potential, if only to could be channeled in a positive direction.

How could we invoke the power of caring, without evoking vitriol and ridicule from the market? If we could take it in a positive direction, that same power might birth a highly successful positioning in a highly competitive market.

That was the challenge. How could it be met?

More to follow.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob

“Okay, so we have all this market research data,” the executive challenged. “What do we do with it? What insights can you give me that I can really use to drive change in the organization?”

Ever heard this before?

Comments like this, especially after I’d labored long and hard producing a presentation deck, used to really tick me off. My immediate response (in my head) was, hey, you’re the big dog, aren’t you the one who’s supposed to come up with the insights, the a-ha’s? Besides, I can’t implement; only you can, so why should I give you all the great ideas so you can look like a hero and I run back off to my cubicle? (Was I an angry young man? I think you get my drift.)

Eventually I realized that the executive was not complaining about the work I had done; he or she was saying they were drowning in facts, pure information overload, and needed managers like myself to do some of the hard work of finding the information that could truly forward the company’s goals and mission from those that were just nice to know or even that simply helped break through to the critical insight(s).

But how to do so? How can market researchers move from generating data and findings to spying and championing insights that break new ground for our companies?

The old shibboleth says that success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. I used to do a lot of perspiring with negligible inspiring.

As market researchers we are often best positioned to have the inspirations the executives want and need. Why? We have the base data. And we directly face, hear from and listen to the customers.

But it takes much more than simply absorbing ever increasing amounts of data and information to find insights.

Over the course of several more blogs, we’ll talk about the creative process and how market researchers can optimize the information we have with insights that create major impact within our organizations.

Comments welcome!

Dr. Bob