Improving advertising decisions

Stephen King

This paper is based on an approach to advertising research centred upon the following questions: What are the processes and stages of making marketing decisions? How do these stages inter-relate? What roles can research play at each stage? What sort of research is needed? A cycle for marketing planning is illustrated based on assessing the answers to the following questions: Where are we? Why are we there? Where could we be? How could we get there? Are we getting there? It is argued that research methods should be judged by their effectiveness at helping to answer questions at each stage of the planning cycle.

Improving advertising decisions

Stephen KingJ. Walter Thompson Company Limited

Starting off the MRS seminar, “The Proof of Advertising Value”, was a good excuse for calling for a return to basics, particularly as one of the seminar's objectives was to integrate the various “modes of evaluating advertising”*. It's probably time to return to basics any how. We've always had periodic offerings of magic solutions to the problems of measuring advertising effectiveness. They are nearly always stimulating and lead to progress, but we also have to remind ourselves periodically whythe magic solution approach won't work. Perhaps more...

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