Editor's note: Christiaan de Brauw is executive vice president of Creative & Response Research Services, Inc., Chicago.

In the past 20 years, we have seen some fairly dramatic changes in the practice of advertising. Not only do ads look and sound completely different, they come through more media channels and in ever greater numbers.

Although our clients still hope that their advertising will increase sales, their specific expectations of what an ad can accomplish have become far more realistic. At the same time, consumers have become infinitely more sophisticated at processing advertising messages, due to the sheer volume of ads that are aimed at them every day.

All of this has forced communications researchers to rethink what makes advertising effective and how to measure that effectiveness. This article describes communications performance criteria that appear applicable today and then shows some examples of how to address them in research.

Traditional communications criteria

In the '70s and '80s, the industry relied on a set of well-defined criteria for measuring the effectiveness of an ad, including:

Breakthrough - The ability of the ad to stand out, be noticed or recalled from exposure in the context of other media fare.

Message communication - Verbal playback of the perceived message: What was the main idea the advertiser was trying to get across to you? What else?

Importance and believability of the perceived message - How important is that idea to you? How believable?

Attitude change, or "persuasion" - Changes in perceived quality, effectiveness, value, attractiveness, uniqueness, etc., of a product or brand. Changes in ranked choice. Changes in intent to buy, likelihood of considering to buy.

Much time and energy was spent on a debate over which of these criteria was most important, especially in circles where clients insisted on a single "score." There was the Burke or Gallup & Robinson camp favoring breakthrough measures, and there were the ARS/ASI/Buy Test proponents insisting that persuasion was the only valid single indicator. And there were the behavioral measures, measuring involuntary behavioral responses like skin conductivity, eye movement and voice pitch to ads.

Thoughtful researchers would insist that ad effectiveness couldn't be represented by a single score, and would argue for a combination of measures, which complicated the "go-no go" decisions but which benefited the client's intent to learn how to improve future ad executions.

Although no one ever claimed that ad research was very "real world," it was functional, because people in the industry generally agreed that advertisements that tested well in terms of one or more of the accepted criteria were more effective than advertisements that tested poorly.

Advertising today

When we look at advertising today, the '70s testing criteria no longer fit. For example, what would be the point of asking, "What was the main idea the advertiser tried to get across?" when the TV commercial shows a savvy flock of ants carrying off a bottle of Budweiser?

Targeting has become much more sophisticated, and, compared to years ago, clients seem less concerned about their messages being ignored or rejected by whoever isn't their key customer. It used to be that major advertisers would worry about being insulting to anyone. Nowadays, if you connect with your customer or prospect, that's all that matters.

Advertisers do spend a lot of effort in developing their message or campaign concepts. They want guidance for the total marketing effort for the brand or the product. The interest is in getting the idea right.

Clients have become more sophisticated about how to use different media together. For example, television ads are used to open the door for a direct mail effort, telemarketing or a free-standing newspaper insert. As a result, there appears to be less interest in learning how an individual ad performs by itself, but more how it contributes to the total marketing effort.

This shift in the roles advertising is expected to perform has led us to define the new criteria of advertising performance. So far, these criteria have been based on qualitative research. This is not just because we haven't found satisfactory tools for quantification. Rather, the types of questions being asked of advertising researchers (getting the right idea and relating it to total marketing) are becoming more exploratory and intuitive, less standardized and statistical.

Even so, it is possible to define criteria that contribute to the effectiveness of getting the right idea across to consumers. At the same time, it is becoming clear that, in order to be effective, advertising has to reach higher than ever before.

The new communication performance criteria

From studying consumers' impressions and perceptions of advertising in the marketplace, we have distilled a number of contemporary communication performance criteria:

a) Receptivity. Where "breakthrough" used to be sufficient as an indicator of how attention-attracting an ad is, this no longer is enough. Today, every message vies for attention. The problem is how to sustain attention.

The successful ad rewards the consumer for paying attention. In other words, the consumer wants to feel that once one pays attention, it remains worthwhile to give attention. Without this incentive, people ignore the message, use their remote control, or toss the junk mail.

The burden on the advertiser is huge; there's a need to be noteworthy right away and a need to be entertaining, relevant or involving in some way.

b) Total communication. Total communication involves both direct (intended) communication and indirect communication conveyed by the context of the message.

No longer is it sufficient to communicate an idea either verbally or logically. Consumers are becoming extremely adept at interpreting visual messages, symbols and tonality. Whatever is perceived as the intended message is reinforced or contradicted by the message context.

For instance, when a long distance telephone company promises "25 percent savings" in its ads, the consumer actually sees a message context that says there's a lot of competition (or warfare) between the telephone companies.

Note: These between-the-lines impressions have always existed. What's different today is, in the clutter and unimaginativeness of intended messages, these contextual cues are actually becoming the dominant message that registers.

c) Relevance. It used to be that you would try to convince a consumer that your product is better, more effective, of higher quality, more sophisticated, or has a unique feature. Once you knew that your ad would change the right attitudes among target consumers, you would expect consumers to act upon your ad.

In today's cluttered communication environment it has become very hard to make consumers even consider what you tell them. Consumers have become quite selfish when exposed to an advertisement. They want to know what's in it for them. They don't necessarily accept attitude-changing cues or messages, unless the advertiser also shows how it applies to them personally.

For example, in order for a message to be relevant, the viewer, reader or listener must personally identify with whatever feelings or events are shown, or perceive personal benefits (like feeling smarter or being "with it") as part of the offer.

d) Relationship. It never was very realistic to expect that advertisements would persuade the viewer to purchase a product just from seeing the ad, but this idea is implied in the traditional persuasion scores.

From qualitative observation of consumer response to advertising, we have derived a clearly observable precursor of behavior which we call "relationship." A successful ad moves people closer to a product, brand, service or idea. In the case of negative advertising, a successful ad creates distance between the consumer and what is under attack.

Depending on the product category, this sense of relationship may manifest itself differently:

Manifestations of "Relationship"

Affinity -  Example: A successful fast food commercial reinforces a sense of loyalty (belonging, feeling at home there) among its customers.

Consideration -  Example: A successful automobile ad creates a sense of "wanting to go look at and consider that car" when I'm in the market.

Acceptance - Example: A successful beer commercial creates a sense that "The next time I'm offered brand _______, I'll appreciate it."

Nurturing a sense of relationship is rewarding to people. They feel better about themselves when they act upon something (go somewhere, buy something) they feel close to. Also, a sense of relationship helps people select a brand from the competitive array. They choose the brand they relate to.

The reason negative advertising is so effective is that negative ads destroy people's sense of relationship. Negative information about a political candidate or a brand undermines the opportunity for nurturing a sense of relationship. Only those who already have a strong sense of relationship to a brand or a candidate remain unaffected. All others become less likely to buy or to consider the advertised product.

Techniques and procedures based on the new criteria

a) Measuring receptivity. The best indication of receptivity to advertising is unaided recall of advertising shown in the real world, advertising that was on the air, in print ads, newspaper inserts and coupons.

This type of recall can be measured quantitatively with telephone interviewing and qualitatively with personal depth interviews or group interviews.

In quantitative interviewing, it is especially important to create multiple opportunities for consumers to remember advertising. A single direct question ("What is [BRAND] advertising?") isn't enough.

Relevant recall may come in response to a variety of questions, such as . . .

What's new in (CATEGORY)?

What is a good deal in (CATEGORY)?

What are the leading brands in (CATEGORY)?

When you think of (BRAND) what comes to mind?

What do you like, and what don't you like about (BRAND)?

What do you see or hear in (BRAND)'s advertising?

The point to remember is that different people will mention something that is in the advertising in response to different probes. Only if you look at the responses to a combination of questions will you be able to identify whether a respondent was receptive to a specific ad or a campaign.

When testing samples of direct mail (where receptivity is essential) we like to create a situation where we can observe respondents to see if they are receptive. For example, you give respondents an envelope with a brochure and letter assembled in the manner in which it is mailed, and ask them to act as they would at home if this envelope was in their mail. (If the respondent indicates s/he would toss the envelope unopened, ask why, then ask them to open it anyway.)

Often, this simple approach shows that some pieces capture attention. The respondents become receptive. They get into the message and spend some time looking the material over. Other pieces create a lukewarm reaction. The respondent is done looking it over in a matter of seconds.

Some respondents show they are confused, keep trying to get what the message is about (to please the interviewer). Usually, when we ask, "Would you have looked at this brochure as long if you had received it at home?" the answer is an emphatic "No, I would have tossed it a long time ago."

b) Total communication. Much of the insight about the importance of what is communicated by message context derives from qualitative interviewing. Projective techniques and exercises are especially useful to get at what people clearly see in advertising but don't expect you to be asking for.

To make this point clear to respondents, we use a technique called Tandem Team Interviewing. In this approach, there are two moderators. One moderator is introduced to the respondents as the "direct" person, asking straightforward, logical (left-brain) questions. The other moderator is introduced as the person who will lead the group in exploratory exercises using questions that take some imagination to answer.

Separating these interviewer roles has several advantages. First, ordinary consumers are quite willing to be daring and uninhibited with one person, so long as they have the safety net of the other moderator to express their more rational self.

Second, clients find the dual moderator approach easy to follow. When the "logical" moderator is leading the sessions, they can expect to hear what is perceived as the overt, intended message. When the "non-logical" moderator is leading the sessions, the client can listen from a different perspective, to find out what consumers are reading between the lines.

c) Relevance and relationship. For advertising to be relevant and to generate a sense of relationship in the consumer, it is necessary to really understand how consumers relate to the product category and the brands in the category.

One of our favorite techniques of exploring how people relate to products and brands is called collage research. Typically, this is done in focus group settings.

We ask qualifying respondents to make and bring to the group a collage of whatever they can find that represents themselves, their lifestyle and how they feel about a particular product. Usually, respondents do this with magazine pictures, but personal material may be used as well.

In these groups we do a variety of exercises, asking respondents to:

  • describe the creator of the collage just from looking at the collage (We then have the creator of the collage comment on the group's insights.);
  • find the common threads in all the collages;
  • speculate how collages would change if they were made for a different brand in the category.

This type of probing, as well as any good exploratory research, should provide a clear blueprint for what creates relevance and on what feelings a sense of relationship should be based. Knowing these factors, it becomes possible to include them when measuring the impact of advertising.

Conclusion

Developments in advertising styles, and redefined roles for advertising in the marketing mix create the problem of how to define, in researchable terms, what the advertising is supposed to accomplish. Some of the goals of advertising have become difficult to define in easily quantifiable terms.

While much of contemporary advertising research appears to be aimed at enhancing the efficiencies of media weight and mix, the main consideration for advertising is whether you have something to communicate that target consumers will be receptive to and are likely to act upon in some fashion.

This article has attempted to show examples of ways to define some of the new goals of advertising into qualitative research criteria. Such criteria can be applied to assess whether an individual ad, an advertising theme or campaign accomplishes does what it was designed to do.