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Creative Planning in Automation Age

On the list of buzzwords of the past few years, AI has stayed firmly in the top five. As a result, there have been countless essays and in-depth analyses dissecting the influence of AI and other automation developments in the fields of Advertising & Communication, as well as predictions on where we will find ourselves at the end of this futuristic path.

Riding the same bandwagon, Biz-eyes has been going through a digital transformation and thus, has initiated multiple courses of action in utilizing technology to support and facilitate us – to execute ideas and optimize results.

Moving forward, however, we are facing a new generation of automation developments in Advertising & Communications, ones that do not simply follow instructions and handle the trivial legwork. There have been discussions about the possibilities of AI writing press releases and PR articles; automated data collection and analyses are churning out insights and creative approaches more sophisticated than ever before; CGI characters have become massive Instagram influencers and computers have created works of art in the forms of proses, music and paintings for years. Those are only a few highlights on a list of computerized capabilities that seems to be growing at an accelerating speed.

This poses the inevitable question: Will AI eventually replace human in the Creative industries?

Triggered by this hypothesis, within our limited reach and scopes of work, we aspire to explore the relationship between AI and human in the fields of Advertising & Communications, to somewhat look into the various ways that we can collaborate with AI not as a tool but a self-commanded, ever evolving partner, to eventually find out at the core what is so essential about the human's minds, senses and instincts in the creative planning process, if they are at all.

The most exciting and scary part of it all: we don’t know which answer we will arrive at, if we will even reach one at all. But hey, why would we do it otherwise?

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Case study: KFC Print Advert By Ogilvy: Hot & Spicy

Over the past decade, forgetting about how some big competitors like Popeyes or Chick-fil-A have been on the upswing, KFC, which used to be considered as a family brand, has put effort to take a multipronged approach to turn things around in order toproved thatthis bird still has some pluck in QSR (Quick Server Restaurant) fast food.

“As we started this brand turnaround, we really went back and started with, What’s the DNA of KFC? And what’s our brand positioning? And how do we bring this great, iconic brand to life in the U.S.?” says Brian Cahoe, chief development officer at KFC. “That’s the lens that we’ve taken everything through in this journey.”

Particularly, in the early of this year, KFC has teamed up with Ogilvy & Mather to roll out a new campaign for its signature “Hot and Spicy” recipe. It cannot be denied that “The best print ads often make you look twice”, and this KFC Ads campaign would be a perfect example named “KFC Hot and Spicy” out of Hong Kong.

In a word of fast growing Internet advertising, it is nice to stumble and take a minute to admire smart and beautifully designed print ads. This campaign visually brings to life the hot sensation of the product with real-life fireball.

Why do we call it a clever and well executed set of Ads? By replacing fire in photography -shots of the Space Shuttle, a rocket-powered race car and a group of Power Ranger stand-ins—with blown-up (in more ways than one) series of images of spicy fried chicken, Ogilvy Hong Kong found a simple and effective metaphor. The campaign has launched in-store across more than 60 branches across the territory, and it is complemented by print advertising, online promotions and key outdoor media.

The print has text which says “KFC Hot & Spicy”.This is how they are selling their product to customer by promise of benefit. Because they are promising something really “hot” and “spicy” not only by saying, but through the visuals of fire. They also use dark backgrounds to bring out the color of the chicken. And it is absolutely awesome.

We could easily realize that there’s definitely not much in the concept. It could be seen a very simple and positive way of looking at things before presenting it by visuals. In particular, once you got the concept, you really get the concept and can just sit back and appreciate the craft. The marketing team blown up with it, worked hard, and spent hours to ensure the chicken truly did look like it was amazing bang.

However, we have to ask question ourselves: Would this campaign be such successful and seen as the best-ever fried chicken print ads just with incredibly simple but clever visual trick? The answer is certainly “No”. Because in most Asian countries, where spicy is considered as a classic and favorite flavor, it would be easier to attract people who are fans of hot and spicy food and probaly make them feel crave for it. Let’s just say, KFC, once again, has demonstrated that how they understand thoroughly their targeted customer by regions.

Even though no body knows that how many piece of “Hot & Spicy” chicken have already been served after this ad campaign was released, but one thing’s certain, the series of flaming images have inspired a lot of people on the internet. They have tried to create the similar fried-chicken-art then show them on their social media by various ways. Admittedly, KFC rarely disappoints their targeted audience, instead, they are always seeking to wowthem, and this campaign is not an exception.

Commenting on the campaign, KFC Hong Kong CMO’s William Tsing, said “Hot & Spicy is one of the Colonel’s signature recipes, and certainly a favorite amongst our customers here in Hong Kong. It’s a classic flavor, and this work brilliantly delivers the product promise with a playful execution for the brand to capture attention.”.

KFC has successfully demonstrated that, with a little imagination, you can turn fried chicken into anything, even the backdrop of an action film, or simply a cloud of exhaust forming behind a racecar.

The creation of a buzz in a short term that can be seen as a big win of this family brand. However, the longer-term success involves a strong, integrated strategy and the time and resources to continually interact with and build relationships with consumers.

Overall, the combination of creativity and local cultural flavor on adapting food cultures plays an decisive role in success of localizing brand’s message and sometimes increasing a brand’s value. When it comes to a company’s localization strategy, perhaps the most important aspect is whether or not the brand name of its product or service will transition seemlessly into another culture. Given the similarities of flavor culture, the question would then be “Is this applicable to the countries in the region?”. It would be absolutely a “yes” if making some adjustments to become better adapt to each country.

Let’s imagine how it will look like if we can make some change to this KFC print ads to adapt Vietnamese culture, maybe pottery-kiln, flamethrower performance, or even…Saigon’s hot weather instead of space shuttle, heros or race car.

References:

1.    Resourcemageonline. KFC Marketing Team Blow Up With A New Ad Campaign. [Online] 2017. Available from: http://resourcemagonline.com/2018/04/kfc-marketing-team-blows-up-with-a-new-ad-campaign/89034/ 

[Accessed: May 20th 2018]

2.    Adweek. KFC’s Stunt of Following 11 People on Twitter Was Nice, But …[Online] 2017. Available from: http://www.adweek.com/digital/hope-bertram-digital-megaphone-guest-post-kfc/

[Accessed: May 19th 2018]

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Editor’s pick: The Man On The Moon campaign

In Vietnam, Christmas is not an official holiday and for some people, it is only a holiday for Christians. The majority of Vietnamese celebrate Christmas by going out with their friends or exchanging cards. Vietnamese do not have the habit of giving gifts to others during Christmas holiday, especially if they are not Christians. 

However, the culture is different in some Western countries, for example, The United Kingdom. Christmas is an important holiday for them and they usually celebrate by staying close to their families and giving gifts to each other. However, not everyone is able to be close to their loved one left alone receiving Christmas gifts. Following this insight, John Lewis – a chain of high end department store in UK, has had several touching Christmas adverts every year. But the one that left viewers with tears and wonders the most perhaps is the 2015’s Christmas advert “Man on the moon”.

So what are the secrets that make this ad a nationwide favourite?  

1.     Same narrative, new insight

Using the same concept for Snow people in Love (2012), The Bear and the Hare (2013), Monty the Penguin (2014) to spread the message of showing love to others, however, the 2015 ad had deeper insight than we thought. According to a research by Age UK (2015), 60% of people over 65 didn’t expect to be happy on Christmas. If this makes you feel sad, I cannot imagine how you would feel about 42% who were so sure that they would miss they loved ones who have died and 29% who worried that they wouldn’t be able to see everyone they want over the festive period. If Vietnamese people are so caught up with Tet, British people feel the same thing for Christmas. They are so busy making their holiday perfect that they forget that it is about giving and loving, and the John Lewis Christmas ad is a gentle reminder for them.

2.     Mood and tone

“So when I leave this planet, you know I’d stay but I just can’t stand it”

Compare to previous Christmas ads, this video is a little bit gloomier for holiday’s spirit. Aurora’s cover of “Half the world away” is a gentler, tender version of Oasis. With the gloomy mood and tone, the song reminds us that Christmas is not just about having fun and receiving gifts, but also about caring for others.

3.     Tear-jerking, but isn’t for nothing

The ad triggers emotions in all of us, and make us rethink about old people we pass by on the street every day. People that are slightly the same age with our grandparents, but with no one to take care of  them.  John Lewis teamed up with Age UK and used their insight to create this Christmas ad, not only so John Lewis could sell more products. Profits from their mug, gift tag and card all went to Age UK so that they could support seniors around UK. People could also donate directly from John Lewis and Age UK website. Kill two birds with one stone! 

 4.     John Lewis owns Christmas

With consistent brand image and story narrative every year, John Lewis is striving to own Christmas. Every story from John Lewis is heart-tugging and captures the spirit of Christmas perfectly. With just one percent ahead of Coca-Cola, 27% British who responded said that John Lewis was the brand they associated most with Christmas. Furthermore, the majority also revealed that they were most keenly anticipating Christmas ad from John Lewis, followed by Coca-Cola and M&S. For the British, John Lewis ad is not just an ad, but rather something to look forward to, a sign that Christmas is coming around the corner.

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CREATIVE MARKETING CASE STUDY: THE INSPIRATION FROM CITIES

Early in the spring this year, Coca Cola China has tried new twist on marketing strategy “Share a Coke” which has been brought to over 80 countries and made the huge buzz in both terms of media impact and trade effect since first launch in 2011.  When “Share a Coke” started in Australia in 2011, the campaign focused on placing common first names on the label so people would snatch up bottles bearing their names and friends’ names. China followed the idea in 2013, yet used popular online nicknames like “Superstar” or “Dreamer” to tap into China’s media-savvy young generation instead of using real names. Continuing campaign success, customized bottles with song lyrics appeared a year later. Then, as movie trend boomed in 2015, the campaign was all about famous films and TV quotes replaced brand name on bottles.

This spring, to iterate the popular campaign, Chinese customers can have customized Coke sleek can inspired by traditionally cultural value which is one of the most effective material to do branding in this most populated market. China is a vast country with many megacities varied in manners an customs. Different cities regconized by thier distinctive charms in geographic condition, life style, people, food or infrastructure has coloured a stunning picture about China whose heart and soul lies in the cultural attributes of each place. Everyone has their own city that they fall in love with, it can be a person’s hometown sticked to thier childhood, a current city of habitation where their daily lives circulate within or someplace that people have not ever been but exists in them a desire to visit.

 “The uniqueness of China’s cities has become a big talking point amongst Chinese youth, who are moving between cities more than ever. They want to stay connected to their roots, as well as forging new connections to the places they move to,” said Cia Hatzi, chief client officer for McCann Worldgroup APAC.

 Coca-Cola is launching a series of 23 limited edition cans celebrating the distinct faces of city in China. 23 city themed design featuring thier unique icons and descriptions mixing it with modern and stylish sense of art, Coca-Cola can help you to get closer to these cities that touch your soul and at the other extreme, let you touch their souls. The can designs are visually captivating because some details are obvious, and others discoverable upon a second glance.

“No matter where we grow up, where we go to university or where our careers take us, each city that we live in leaves an impression that is embedded in us forever. Each has its own culture and flavor, its sights and sounds. But above all, cities are made of people. While we may live in a city, it’s the city that also lives in us,” said Richard Cotton, head of content, creative & design, Coca-Cola Greater China & Korea.

 For example, a Delectable Guangzhou is known for its delicious food, so that the icon comes up with modern girl donning the hat with bamboo steamer with buns. A Stylish Shanghai with unstoppable pursuit of trend. Whether it is a group of passers-by or a typical bourgeoisie who enjoying a cup of afternoon tea on Nanjing West road, they all dressed up in a trailblazingly fashionable outfits.

As a part of the camapign, a short TVC  is released to take people on a journey across 3 signature cities of China namely Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai communicated a sense of what gives each location a unique flavor. The endorsement with one of the most popular influencer in China, Luhan with his huge teenager fan base which is counted as productive source of taget consumer, this cooperation has helped boost product sales as long as the TVC launched. In addition, Coca- Cola theme song “Taste the feeling” is also locally remade to adapt to new approach “Taste the feeling of cities”.

Besides TVC celebrating city cultures, the campaign also includes print billboards and a partnership with Baidu to create an augmented reality experience to allow customers to interact with product and packaging in interesting and engaging way. The opportunity for experience opens within 1-month duration from March 12 to April 16, offers customers the chance to scan the special animations on the can using Baidu app to unlock the city’s hidden charms to closely explore and understand its characteristic and temperament.

With the same purpose of previous campaigns, this twist is credited with boosting sales. There have not been specific number indicating sale volumes, however, it is inferred that Coca Cola would be experiencing significant breakthough in product consumption due to the fact that young consumer group has risen dramatically in the past 2 years. Further, there is a shift in consumption behaviour among these target group proven by the psychological insight that young people is constantly looking for changes in their perception of happiness. They are no longer sensitive to price. “Money can buy us happiness” has become the point of view of most new generation consumers.

This innovative approach of Coca-Cola attracted a lot of attention as soon as it was launched. In terms of media partnership, Weibo and Wechat plays critical roles of multiplying campaign’s magnitude in scale as in China, these 2 names are considered top-of-mind active platforms. The media performance analytics in solely 2 middle weeks of the campaign from March 24 to April 7 showed impressive numbers. Along with a support from massive engagment of wide range of fashion and travel bloggers, brand mentions have spiked as much as 504% on social media as many people are excited gto  to express thier love over favorite cities captured on the can with hashtag #Coca-Cola City Can on Weibo and Wechat.

In summary, Coca Cola x City is a marketing campaign successfuly run based on profound insight of cultural value that has strong impact on emotional buying behaviour. Innovative approach has helped China stand out in current harsh competition in drink segment. The campaign offers personalized touch an customized sense of experience to that effectively enhances customer advocacy, then maximizes brand image.

 Sticking to the same strategy motto “Share happiness”, yet previous campaign focuses on personal experience in terms personal identity, hobby, this time Coca Cola tells bigger story using nation pride as the fulcrum that generates promotion for the cities, thus evokes brand love.

 Vietnam and China does not see big gap in cultural differences, hence lesson learned here is the applicability of the same innovative way to interweave brands’ core value with cultural context into local projects in future. Vietnam diversity and distinctiveness of regional values in combination with available technology base like Zalo can be a perfect duet of maketing catalyst to make the same effect for any brands in need.

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A SIMPLE TAKE ON ADVERTISING PRE-TESTING

The age of mass production has introduced many new disciplines to marketing theories, one of which is consumer behaviour study. As consumers are exposed to countless advertisements everyday, it is crucial that marketers and advertisers understand what drives people to make a purchase decision. Many aspects of this subject have been brought to light by James Jayesuria’s presentation on the practices of predicting advertising effectiveness and testing emotional content at Milward Brown Global Agency. Based on that, this essay will further discuss the role of emotion behind consumer behaviour in search of an understanding of its effect on the advertising industry.

Extensive research showed that the process of making purchase decision is a complicated one that involves consumer cognition, habits, and environment. However, Hansen and Christensen (2007) argued that ‘affect in the form of emotions, feelings, and moods plays a much larger role in consumer choice and processing of advertising than is generally accepted’. Hollis (2010) shared this belief in discussion of emotion in advertising:

‘Every ad generates an emotional response, because everything we encounter in life generates an instictive emotional response. Everything. And so in this way, emotion is more important than most advertisers realise’ (p. 1).

Although this notion is very insightful, it presents several challenges, one of which involves the Dual Process Theory. This theory established that a person’s cognitive processes are divided into two systems – system 1 or ‘automatic system’ and system 2 or ‘effortful system’ (Kahnerman 2012). When a person gets exposed to an advertisement, system 1 dictates his immediate emotional reaction, while system 2 decides his rational response. As a result, emotional response to advertising is ‘largely out of the conscious control of the individual’ (Mehta & Purvis 2006).

Another challenge for advertisers in trying to elicit emotion from viewers is that ‘there is little agreement among advertising researchers about how exactly emotion works to influence the overall impact of advertising, or even how emotional response in advertising can be measured or evaluated’ (Mehta & Purvis 2006).

In an effort to overcome these challenges, many studies have been conducted over the last three decades in an attempt to measure and evaluate emotional reactions to advertising stimuli. Poels and Dewitte (2006) systematised them into two main methods: ‘self report measures’ and ‘autonomic measures’. They have different approaches and aim to register different types of emotions, however each method has its own limitations:

‘Self report measures are cheap and easy but they necessarily involve a cognitive intervention. Autonomic reactions, at first sight, seem most valid to measure lower order emotions. However, due to implementation difficulties and the lack of straightforward and accurate data, the measurement of autonomic measures is not yet fully integrated in advertising research’ (Poels & Dewitte 2006, p. 33).

As one of the most prestigious advertising agencies in the world, Milward Brown has developed their own solution that combines both ‘self report measures’ and ‘autonomic measures’. The result is an advertising pre-testing tool called LinkTM. It is defined as ‘a quantitative research solution that provides both evaluative and diagnostic feedback on advertising prior to airing’ (Jayesuria 2015).

LinkTM collects data through online surveys in which participants are exposed to a test ad in animatic form, while the system records their facial expressions for analysis purposes. Afterwards, participants will be asked to complete a questionaire which aims to gauge on their thoughts toward aforementioned test ad. This way Milward Brown can evaluate an ad’s effectiveness and provide consultation based on a compiled analysis of both emotional reactions (system 1) and rational responses (system 2) from participants.

LinkTM and other pre-testing techniques have helped established further that ‘emotions drive everything we do, so an absence of emotion results in inaction […]’ (Wood, cited in Warc 2010). As a result, ‘emotional campaigns can deliver more effectively than persuasion or information based campaigns on sales, share, or profit objectives’ (Wood 2010). According to Jayesuria (2015), Milward Brown utilises the same principle in evaluating advertising efficiency. The agency believes that there are 12 feelings that an ad can elicit from viewers, divided into 4 fields: active positive, passive positive, passive negative, active negative. Brands need to manage their campaigns so that they do not fall into the passive negative category for it translates into ‘absence of emotion’.

With that being said, emotion is hardly the ultimate goal in advertising. Humans are only as sentimental as they are sensible, which means they often need a factual claim to help justify any purchase decision. Therefore, the most effective strategy is to ‘present both rational and emotional reasons’ to activate the highest level of engagement.

In conclusion, it is evident that emotion plays an incredibly important role in the process of making purchase decision. As a result, it is crucial that advertisers analyse their objective and optimise their ads accordingly to invoke an emotional response from audience. Further, the role of emotion in advertising is one complex subject that involves cognitive neuroscience theories and consumer behaviour theories. Therefore, it is essential that advertisers stay in touch with all developments in this field and apply new findings into their execution.

References:

Cho, H & Stout, PA 1993, ‘An Extended Persective on the Role of Emotion in Advertising Processing’, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 20, pp. 692 – 697. Available from: <http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/7543/volumes/v20/NA-20>

Friestad, M & Thorson, E 1986, ‘Emotion Eliciting Advertising: Effects on Long Term Memory and Judgment’, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 13, pp. 111 – 116. Available from: < http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/6475/volumes/v13/NA-13>

Hansen, F & Christensen, SR 2007, Emotions, Advertising and Consumer Choice, Copenhagen Business School Press, Denmark.

Hollis, N 2010, ‘Emotion in Advertising: Pervasive, Yet Misunderstood’, Milward Brown: Point of View. Available from: < http://www.millwardbrown.com/docs/default-source/insight-documents/points-of-view/MillwardBrown_POV_EmotionInAdvertising.pdf>

Hoyer, WD, MacInnis, DJ & Pieters, R 2013, Consumer Behaviour, Cengage Leaning, OH, USA.

Jayesuria, J 2015, Predicting Advertising Effectiveness and Testing Emotional Content, presentation, presented at RMIT City Campus, Australia.

Kahnerman, D 2012, Thinking: Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, USA.

Mehta, A & Purvis, SC 2006, ‘Reconsidering Recall and Emotion in Advertising’, Journal of Advertising Research. Available from: <http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-22074.pdf>

Poels, K & Dewitte, S 2006, ‘How to Capture the Heart? Reviewing 20 Years of Emotion Measurement in Advertising’, Social Science Research Network. Available from: <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=944401>

Warc Exclusive 2010, Warc Briefing: Using Emotion, Warc. Available from: <http://www.warc.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=1a04f1f2-1dcf-4146-a41a-95ca26533de9&q=warc+briefing+using+emotion&CID=A92153&PUB=WARC-EXCLUSIVE>

Wood, O 2010, ‘Using an Emotional Model to Measure Ad Effectiveness’, Admap. Available from: <http://www.warc.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=840c5ede-0881-4e1c-a461-a298092a99b1>

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ADVERTISING: EFFECT AND EFFECTIVENESS

According to Nielsen’s reports, since 2012 brands and agencies have been spending more than $500 billion yearly on producing and distributing advertising across the world, and the number is predicted to increase even more in upcoming years. Such hefty cost would naturally result in high expectation of short and long–term success, which presents a need for measuring advertising effectiveness.

Advertising is largely a form of communication that is meant to inform or persuade its audience. One could argue that the principle of advertising is infinitely broader and more complex. However, within the scope of this essay, advertising is regarded as a form of paid media, created and distributed by brands or advertising agencies, which ultimately aim to drive sales. Within such definition, advertising is assumed to influence consumer behaviour and purchase decision. An effective advertisement is one that works to increase revenue and generate profit. As a result, many advertising researchers and practitioners have posed the inevitable and obvious question – “Does advertising really work? And if yes, then when, why, and how does it work?” (Tellis 2004).

Unfortunately, the process of evaluating advertising results is not nearly as simple.

Much research has shown that consumer’s purchase decision is a complex process that can hardly be attributed to the effect of advertising. Evaluating advertising effectiveness, as a result, is very difficult.

‘The difficulty occurs because advertising’s working is highly complex. It depends intrinsically on human response to communication. Thus, it involves complexities in the attention, processing, recall, and response to the appeal’ (Tellis 2004).

In an effort to overcome such difficulties, researchers have identified quantifiable key measures that can represent the effectiveness of advertising.

‘Most advertising research measures the characteristics of an advertisement, such as exposure, and the ability of the receiver to comprehend, retain and believe in the advertisement. If all these are present it is assumed or inferred that the advertisement will be effective in producing sales’ (Bootwala & Lawrence 2007).

Consequently, the process of evaluating advertising effectiveness consists of a number of calculations including but not limited to advertising exposure, engagement, brand awareness, and sales reports.

‘Advertising exposure’ is a presentation of an advertisement to the audience – higher exposure means the advertisement is viewed by more people more frequently. Advertising exposure relies heavily on communication channels and media. Traditional channels such as billboards, print ads and TV commercials measure exposure by counting the number of people travelling pass a billboard, or number of people watching TV at the time an ad is aired. Digital channels such as websites and social media count the number of users, visitors and views. Mitchell (2013) suggested the idea behind exposure is that the more people are exposed to an ad, as long and as frequently as possible, the more they are affected by it.

However, as consumers are bombarded with advertisements like they are today, they become desensitised with them, and thus exposure has lost its value. Not only does higher exposure not mean higher effectiveness any longer, but overexposed ads also run the risk of wearing people out. Therefore, it is crucial that advertisers identify their target audience to ensure their message can reach out to people in need, without wasting exposure on the wrong audience.

Another key measurement that partly dictates advertising effectiveness is ‘engagement’.

‘Advertising engagement measures the extent to which a consumer has a meaningful experience when exposed to commercial advertising, sponsorship, television contact, or other experience’ (Poonia 2010).

The Advertising Research Foundation proposed that ‘engagement’ depends on the message and message media. The same message can generate different level of engagement when executed on different platforms. For example, traditional advertising channels can generate a low level of engagement only due to the lack of two–way communication. Digital advertising on the other hand, can achieve extremely high engagement rate thanks to Web 2.0 and user–generated content.

It is also worth noticing ‘that the social web is becoming mainly a form of horizontal engagement and that the verticality of each channel, separate from the others, doesn’t make sense any more’ (Padua 2012). This presents the need for integrated and multimedia advertising campaigns. Most often the right mix of traditional and digital channels generate the highest engagement rate.

The combination of exposure and engagement builds brand awareness, which is ‘the basic dimension of brand equity’ (Shimp 2008).

There are two levels of awareness: brand recognition and brand recall, which can be measured by surveys among focus groups.

‘The method may be the first brand brought to mind, aided or unaided depending on the research institute, brand preference, quality image, prestige, first and second buying preferences when the favoured brand is not available’ (Kapferer 2008).

Lastly, the seemingly most obvious measure to evaluate whether an advertisement is effective in driving sales is sales reports. If there is an increase in sales, one would assume that advertising worked to persuade consumers. This is a good indicator as it is the most straightforward and easiest to measure. However, it is not without its shortcomings, one of which is that ‘consumers may buy a product for a variety of reasons’ (Tellis 2004). This is especially true when consumers are saturated with advertising and turn to believe in peer review or word–of–mouth recommendations more than anything. Therefore, ‘advertising is only one of the many causes that prompt them to buy from a brand’ (Tellis 2004).

In conclusion, discussions on the key measures in evaluating advertising effectiveness have informed the many aspects of this process. However, they can hardly represent the true effect of advertising. Not only because the influence of advertising varies by segments and individuals within a market, but also because advertising has more subtle and long term effect that can dictate buyer behaviour as well. It is very important that researchers and practitioners keep looking for more methods to measure advertising effectiveness so that brands and advertising agencies are able to produce better advertisements that bring better results.

References:

Bootwala, S & Lawrence, MD 2007, Advertising and Sales Promotion, Nirali Prakashan, Mumbai.

Mitchell, AA (ed) 2013, Advertising Exposure, Memory and Choice, Psychology Press, New Jersey.

Cooper, A (ed) 2006, How to Plan Advertising, Thomson Learning, London.

Tellis, GJ 2004, Effective Advertising: Understanding When, How, and Why Advertising Works, Sage Publications, California.

Goldstein, DG, McAfee, RP & Suri, S 2011, The Effects of Exposure Time on Memory of Display Advertisements, Dan Goldstein. Available at <http://www.dangoldstein.com/papers/Goldstein_McAfee_Suri_Ad_Exposure_EC11.pdf>

Kapferer, JN 2008, The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term, Kogan Page Limited, London.

Poonia, VS 2010, Advertising Management, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi.

Nielsen 2014, Advertising and Audiences: State of The Media Report. Available at <http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/jp/docs/report/2014/Nielsen_Advertising_and_%20Audiences%20Report-FINAL.pdf>