Question

Topic: Research/Metrics

Testing Ad Memorability

Posted by Anonymous on 9/21/2012 at 12:18 PM ET 500 Points
Hello All,

One of the greatest 'dilemmas' (if you will) for advertisers / agencies alike has been to understand the link between impact of TV ads on consumer memorability.

There are myriad research papers and conferences that have addressed this basic question in some format or the other.

My question today is (perhaps) simplistic, but does require some thought. I'm hoping the collective intellegentsia of the eyeballs perusing this question will provide some solid food for thought. So, here goes.

How would you design a test to analyze how long someone needs before an advertisment (tv) stays with him/her for a week / month?

In other words, how many exposures before an ad is imprinted in that person's mind and is easily recalled for a week / month?

What are the factors that impact this? Creatives / Content / program genre - frequency of viewing? What and how can we determine those salient factors that trigger our memory such that it seamlessly travels from initial attention to ongoing involvement to engagement? Do moods / time of day et al play a role? I'm just spitballing now :-)

How would we test this precarious link? Neuroscience? Qualitative research followed by quant? The other way round?

As you can see, there's no one easy solution or readily available metrics that can help.

Have you guys been involved in any innovative way of extracting this information?

Ideas? Pray tell...

Cheers,
S
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 9/21/2012 at 2:31 PM Member
    First thought is it depends, are you asking about remembering TV ad content (as entertainment or ?) or remembering the brand name associated with TV ad? As you know many people will quickly remember and even talk with friends about the typical animated rodents in an advertisement, but not have a clue which brand is being promoted.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/21/2012 at 5:00 PM Accepted
    The answer will also depend to some significant extent on the product category or industry. Some categories are very high interest (e.g., new technology, restaurants, beauty products, etc.) and some are notoriously low (e.g., dishwasher detergents, laundry aids, etc.).

    Some are high-interest to a small segment, or for a short time (e.g., seasonal products). Some are frequently purchased (like most consumer packaged goods), and others are infrequently purchased (like tires, mattresses and carpeting, etc.). Some are in highly-competitive markets, with lots of competitive activity, and others are in "quiet" markets.

    Couple the category information with the creative (i.e., Is it designed to just create awareness for the brand name, or is there a clear and emotional benefit promise as well?), and I suspect there is no way to answer the question in a general sense.

    I've been involved with some longer-term brand awareness studies conducted in different geographic areas where the primary variable was television advertising weight, and we could see the effects of heavier advertising weight on aided and unaided awareness (using a quantitative study). We even knew the average reach and frequency in each area, so theoretically we could have drawn the awareness-versus-advertising-exposure curve.

    We never did that, though, because the brand was reasonably well-known in all areas, and there was no good way to adjust for different market share levels or unusual competitive activity. After all, if someone is a regular user of a brand, they're likely to be more sensitive to new/more advertising for that brand. So you'd expect advertising effectiveness/memorability to be greater in higher-share areas.

    Like so many questions of this nature, there is probably a way to measure what you're asking, but only with a very specific brand/product and very specific advertising copy/creative ... and a big research budget.
  • Posted on 9/21/2012 at 8:03 PM Author
    @Steve: Monitoring the length of time it takes for a TV ad (content) to sink in. Yes, the 'animated rodents' is an excellent example....stretching that a bit further....so how long AFTER the ad was first aired that it became a 'conversation' topic? In essence, because the person remembered the content he/she was able to quickly put what was seen in context to a discussion they had at a later point - My question, how can we know that the person's memorability has peaked with that specific content given the clutter that exists in the tv ad space? Creative? Relevance? How can we design something to test this?

    @mgoodman - Excellent point, and my bad for overlooking this in the initial post. I'm specifically interested in low-mid involvement (on most occasions) FMCG categories. I, too, have been a practitioner of brand health studies designed to elicit spontaneous responses to TV ads et al....and I agree tracking is a longer time solution to numerous business questions....

    But, in this instance - we probably need to think of something a bit more focused in terms of creating a set of dependent and independent variables and somehow 'test' them so that we can get a recommendation like this:

    "We have successfully determined that the average no. of exposures / impressions needed to imprint tv ad content before easy recall of that content occurs even after a week is: 'x' a month is 'y'. The parameters that determine these outcomes are abcd...." and son on and so forth.

    Hope this clarifies.

    Thanks
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 9/21/2012 at 9:28 PM Accepted
    The first hurdle you've got is determining IF someone sees the ad. Just because it's broadcast doesn't mean that the ad is seen.

    The next hurdle is determining if the person seeing the ad is a potential customer. It's easy to ignore ads that simply aren't a fit for one's needs.

    Another hurdle is how long is it remembered? Just as you had to fight to have your ad remembered, so too are other companies vying for the viewer's memory space. So, retention needs to also be considered.

    There's no doubt that time of day, context (what ads are before/after as well as relevance to the TV show), age of viewer, gender, etc are all variables that would need to be accounted for.

    As for how to test, it seems like it needs to be based on natural recall (rather than FMRI) - perhaps by interview or survey. If the ad has a deadline associated with it (call by Tuesday), then it's easy to test if someone were to take action.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/22/2012 at 5:03 PM Moderator
    We really should consult a market research professional on this one. There are undoubtedly ways to measure memorability as a function of exposures.

    The things you'd have to be careful about are (1) taking the results as firm absolute numbers; and (2) extrapolating results to other copy for the same brand, to other brands, or to other media.

    If this is a real project and you're prepared to fund a pilot study, let me know and I will get an experienced market research pro to get involved in the project. (We've done comparative studies that were designed to answer similar questions, so I'm pretty sure it can be done.)
  • Posted by Ghost Writer on 9/23/2012 at 12:39 PM Accepted
    As others have pointed out, there are many factors behind the number of exposures needed.

    Some are uncontrollable, such as the consumer's need or level of motivation for action.

    Some can be changed, such as the product name, the quality of the ad, the level of copywriting and images used, etc.

    Other factors include whether it is a push ad (traditional media, e-mail, etc.) or a pull ad (directory listing, Google adwords, etc.)

    So, there really can be no hard and fast rule that covers ALL ads in every medium and situation.

    However, there are a couple of metrics that I hear time and again; here they are, for what it's worth ...

    THREE = number of times someone must see an ad in order to remember product and brand

    SEVEN = number of exposures required to prompt action (purchase, research, word of mouth repitition)

    I have had loads of marketing and ad people assure me these magic numbers are supported by a metric tonne of data.

    However, having never seen the actual studies or proof first-hand, I would counsel taking these with a nice, fat grain of salt ...
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