On measuring the power of communications

This article builds a framework for a new approach to copy testing, based on a theoretical model of advertising that brings affective measures to the forefront.

On Measuring the Power of Communications

Bruce F. HallHoward, Merrell & Partners

MEASURING THEeffectiveness of advertising in the laboratory— “copy testing”—has been a highly contentious area of advertising research for at least a quarter-century. It is an issue that jeopardizes the relationship between agencies and their advertiser clients (Cook and Dunn, 1996) because typically the client wants to test and the agency does not. It is also arguably one of the most pernicious impacts that marketing's left-brain bias has had on the intuitive and creative side of advertising. Yet the testing methods in use today have changed...

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