Editor's note: Thomas D. Dupont is president of D2 Research, Mountain Lakes, N.J. He is a past chairman of the board of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations.

Does the following scenario sound familiar? Whiskaway is an automatic swimming pool cleaner tablet which, when dropped into the pool, kills bacteria and algae. The brand was introduced using TV advertising with a "convenience" strategy. Sales growth has been substantial, though lately it has started to slow down. The V.P.-marketing has decided that a new strategy is needed, and favors focusing on the core benefit of cleaning. In response, the agency has just finished a creative exploratory and has presented three storyboards, each with a different copy promise. Among them are:"Kills 99 percent of the bacteria in the pool.""The #1 choice of professional pool technicians."At the end of the meeting, after everyone has expressed their opinions, heads turn to the research department representative, who is asked, "So, when can we schedule tests of these commercials?"Based on 25 years of participation in such meetings, let me suggest some ways the proactive researcher can intervene and make a valuable contribution to the team effort.

1. Systematically question the assumptions underlying the ad. Every ad rests on a set of assumptions about the target market - who they are, what they know or believe, what is important to them and what they are able to understand. In many cases there may be a strategy statement that specifies who the target is and what's important to them (i.e., what benefits should be stressed). Sometimes this is based on research, sometimes not. Rarely (even among the most sophisticated advertisers) is there an explicit statement of what the target knows or can understand. Consequently, the researcher needs to determine what, if any, assumptions the ad makes about the target market. Will consumers understand the claims bei...