Pre-testing, copy testing: History, status, future

 

This paper provides an overview of pre-testing, which it defines as: 'trying to establish, in advance of airing the ad(s), whether they will achieve their objectives'. In addition to a listing of crit ...

One of the key purposes of copy testing is to help inform the decision of whether or not an advertising campaign looks likely to be a success. This paper argues that copy testing is often inconsistent ...

This article is a tribute to Ernest Dichter, whose introduction of motivation research (MR) left a legacy of ideas that shaped advertising practice and study in the twentieth century. His pioneering c ...

Erik du Plessis, of Millward Brown, South Africa suggests that it makes sense to insure against failures. Is there a risk? Insurance products only work if there is a risk. The statement 'this adv ...

At the MRS Conference, 2000, Rupert Howell in a keynote speech attacked the research industry for failing to innovate or adapt to change. The authors take up the challenge of trying to understand the ...

This articles argues that, in a professions that is all about accurate measurement, nobody seems concerned about the use of clutter reels for pre-testing. The arguments in favour of clutter reels cent ...

Market mix modelling can be used to validate pre-tests and has led to new thinking on this hotly debated area of market research. Advertising can and does drive sales in the short term and the relativ ...

The opinions of focus groups on advertising often determine which commercials get produced. They have, however, come under fire, to the point where a recent Newsweek article argued that focus groups a ...

Illustrates the use of Millward Brown's Link copy test procedure for testing global advertising uniformly between countries. Five specific case studies are described. Conclusions: while different cult ...

Testing should be abolished when it is done for some reason other than to improve the return on advertising investment or when the advertising being tested is not expected to have a measurable effect ...

This paper is written from a standpoint which sees advertising research as part of the general marketing research associated with developing and selling a brand and not as an isolated ritual. For thes ...

Reviews the history of advertising research (copy testing) in the USA. The recall-recognition debate; Schwerin's development of persuasion testing, and the recall-persuasion debate; reaction to advert ...

Control over advertising research budgets and initiatives has continued to shift to the advertiser. This trend will likely continue - as will a growing gap between advertiser and agency in use of quan ...

This paper attempts to find characteristics of product categories, brands, and ad copy that lead to either increased or decreased effectiveness of advertising spending on ad awareness, brand awareness ...

It is well known that advertising works - sometimes. Underlying this, of course, is the fact that remarkably little is known about how, when and why it works. This paper examines the historical develo ...

The author reviews the present state of advertising pre-testing in the USA, against its historical background. Recall is no longer regarded as directly related to sales. Persuasion shift testing, howe ...

Describes how Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Company tests advertising copy and evaluates it. The ARS system is used for copy-testing. PRPs (Persuasion Rating Points) derived from ARS are used in tracking as ...

Discusses copy-testing as it is practised at Warner-Lambert: how it is organised and used. Includes some discussion of the ARF Copy Research Validity Study and IRI's 'How Advertising Works'.

A useful review of thinking and practice in the USA about advertisement pre-testing, which has differed from that in the UK. Since its start in the early 1930s there has been disagreement in the USA a ...