Synovate

Pre-testing philosophy
Our pre-testing helps clients to understand whether their ads are going to be effective, by delivering comparative advertising effectiveness coupled with recommendations on how to maximise future potential. It’s designed from three ingredients: people’s needs, the brand’s strategic objectives, and our own expertise in the contentious world of communications research.

First, we believe that an ad needs to demonstrate that the brand it’s promoting touches a real consumer need – practical, physical or emotional – in order to resonate with people. Our questioning and analysis aim to measure just that. Second, we don’t try to force ads into a research straitjacket based on one model of how advertising works (or even a limited number).

Instead, we set out with the client to identify the desired consumer response, and tailormake a questionnaire that’s going to assess the degree to which this has occurred. Our research will help you to see whether your ad is likely to meet its strategic objectives in terms of both the emotional side and traditional efficiency measures, and gives guidelines for how to improve it – how is it working, how strongly is it working, which elements aren’t working and how can it work more effectively, in terms of meeting a genuine consumer need and doing what you want it to. We offer true partnership with clients to assist in creating ads that speak to consumers’ needs and the needs of the brands.


Distinctive features
Brand reappraisal – conventionally not easy to establish, and not always a realistic outcome from a pre-test, but we have developed a unique way to identify this and the aspects of the communication that are associated with it. What’s more, Synovate has a unique market simulator that allows marketers to identify which aspects of the brand need to be highlighted to meet marketing objectives and consumer needs.

Conventional pre-testing often fails to take into consideration the depth of consumers’ involvement in the category. We believe that testing must be conducted among respondents who are the target of the brand and the advertising.

We use the desired consumer response of your campaign as the basis of questionnaire design, and the discipline for analysis.

Our holistic analysis technique means that we are able to understand in full what each respondent has said about your ad, rather than assuming that they will answer in the neat and orderly way they are questioned.

We realise the importance of attaining certain thresholds of achievement; however, we do not produce ‘magic numbers’ that represent the success or failure of ads. Instead, we generate specific benchmarks within the survey, using a competitive reel (not a clutter reel) to assess the competitive standing of the ad. This allows the client/agency to choose competitive ads that are directly relevant to their brand and strategy.

Unlike most pre-testing systems, ours is a genuine qualitative/quantitative approach, drawing on sophisticated models of behaviour, psychology and statistical modelling to ensure that the recommendations provided will have the greatest impact on the communications’ ability to drive sales.


Measures

• Consumer needs identification, purchase intent (pre- and post-exposure)*
• Brand linkage (the extent to which the brand is ‘sewn in’ to the execution)*
• Scaled questions measuring the key ways in which the majority of advertising campaigns work – salience, involvement, persuasion (asked of test and competitor ads, benchmark scores available)*
• Further ratings against key evaluative criteria (likeability, relevance, standout, information, enjoyment, comprehension)
• Communication
• Likes, dislikes
• Ad descriptors
• Prompted communication to reflect brand strategy*
• Brand reappraisal*
• Additional diagnostic questions to provide understanding of campaign fit, slogan recall, etc, as well as issues of concern or differences of opinion
• E-Score summary of potential effectiveness
• Needs Fit Model