Editor's note: Pamela Rogers is president of Pamela Rogers Research, Boulder, Colo.

The qualitative advertising communication check. You know the drill: Someone, either at the agency or the client company, must decide which of several advertising campaigns to produce. Or, for little-known political reasons, somebody wants to "run the advertising by some consumers" prior to a final decision. Alternatively, the advertising decision has already been made, and must be justified with support for the sale. Whatever the reason, a communication check generally means that unknown consumers are summoned to referee a creative play-off, to smooth the often ruffled feathers involved in the creative decision.

No one is particularly fond of this process. Creatives fear their best work will be reduced to a lowest common denominator - the "public as art director," (as in "If only they would darken that typeface a little."). Clients worry that they are basing a multi-million-dollar decision on the whims of a handful of housewives in Stamford. Agency planners and moderators are concerned that their objectivity will be compromised in the political fallout. Focus group facilities cringe as they face the inevitable tight turnaround ("We need to talk to 30 women with children under age 6, who use our 3 percent incidence brand daily, by tomorrow.").

In any marketing research career, you will inevitably be asked to participate in this process. So here are 10 rules I have found to be invaluable in my many years of advertising communication work. I follow them because good creative work is too priceless to sell short with shoddy techniques.

1. Choose one-on-one interviews, not groups. Groups bring out the worst in the advertising critiquing process. No traditional focus group allows enough time for the participants to develop true camaraderie and trust, so each respondent must continue to prove himself to the group, and what better way than to appear "above it all" or somehow superior to the masses and the advertising it aims to coerce. Group participants love to trash advertising, both in general (as in what they saw on TV last night) and specifically (as in your ad). They pounce like wolves on the slightest infringement of their narrowly-defined, peer-acceptable rules of what constitutes good advertising, simply because they are in a group. In a one-on-one the respondent must answer only to the moderator, explaining his choices, emotions, reactions, etc. In a group an individual must answer to and impress seven to nine others, each with their own strict agenda. The communication message quickly becomes muddled. Advertising is an emotional medium, and the 12 minutes allowed any one respondent in a two-hour focus group do not allow for exploration of those emotions.

As the final nail in an ad's coffin, groups despise "Pollyanna" optimism, patriotism and perceived sappiness. The same ads that bring a tear to the eye or tug the heart strings in real life are disparaged as manipulative or silly in group settings. Nobody, at least in a jaded research group, wants to appear to be too happy.

2. Go for the emotion. It is emotion that sells a product and makes advertising work, not a rational selling premise. Research is often viewed as dull and dry, but you can prevent that from happening in your communication check. Use questioning words which bring out the emotional reactions of respondents, phrases like "Tell me your feelings as you were watching that commercial," "How do you feel about that idea?" or "Do you relate to that or not?" Urge your respondents to relax, watch the commercial as if they were viewing at home, and encourage them not to memorize specific facts and details as if they were participating in a school quiz. Watch the respondent's reactions, vocalizations and body language during your presentation of the ad. Are they laughing, sighing, stoically processing dull information, or eyeing the cookies in the middle of the table? How are they talking about the ad - are they animated and involved or detached and analytical? All of these cues will be as valuable in painting the final results as answers to the questions themselves.

3. Keep questioning brief on any one ad. After the first few questions in an interview, feelings are abandoned and respondents lapse into rationalization and intellectual critique - the death knell for creative work. I have seen endless discussion guides and interviewers who question respondents ad nauseam about an ad. The answers quickly take on an ivory tower tonality which is meaningless in the real world. In reality, viewers or readers of an ad make an instantaneous, emotional judgement about it, and it is that moment which a communication check must seize, not subsequent rationalizations about the ad, its political incorrectness or appropriateness for the product. That decisive moment can only be suspended through four or five questions, so keep the touchy-feely questions up front; otherwise an answer will be given from rational brain memory, not the heart.

4. You need quality, not quantity, in your interviews. You can get a good read on your audience with only 15 to 20 interviews per campaign. Remember why they call it qualitative research; you are relying on the skill of the interviewer and other researchers on the project to interpret your data, not raw numbers. You need excellent interpreters - interviewers, strategic planners and/or researchers who really understand the creative research process, and who know how to decipher body language, tonality, and read between the lines of respondent answers. Be sure your interviewer is tuned into, understands and appreciates good creative work, and is aware of the nuances of answers and their underlying meaning. A good interviewer starts weaving the threads of an advertising story together within the first few interviews. A qualitative study is, in effect, more art than craft, and the most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

5. Be sure the agency puts extra effort into the details of the test storyboards, ads, etc. Although a good interviewer will warn respondents up front about the rough quality of "cartoon-like" artwork, scrap art, amateur voice-overs, etc., and will immediately steer respondents away from irrelevant comments, respondents insist on interpreting your rough ads literally. It is difficult for them to simply overlook details which may seem irrelevant to the art director preparing the ad, and minor infractions make a big impact. A respondent critique of factors which are not intended to play a part in the final execution drains energy from the rest of the interview, and may give backroom viewers a skewed view of the results. For example, I often show storyboards which feature frame after frame of only Caucasian people - unusual since many produced ads end up with ethnic diversity. But respondents notice and comment negatively about this detail, negativity which may spill over into their feelings about the product and advertiser. In another example (an ad communication check among serious bicyclists), we showed a print ad for a bicycle wheel. The scrap art featured pictures (chosen to create a mood, not reality) which, upon close inspection, as sports enthusiasts are wont to do, actually portrayed a totally different type of wheel from the advertised product - an oversight which detracted from the credibility of the advertisers.

6. Respondents will inevitably say they dislike comparative, negative ads. Although consumers have no qualms about badmouthing advertising themselves, they say they don't want to hear it from you. USA Today's Adtrack reports that the negative long-distance company ads (each comparing itself to others and saying it has lower prices) are the least-liked ads in television. But these negative ads do provoke emotional responses, recall and controversy, and are overwhelmingly used in political campaigns, so what is really going on? This is an issue which requires delicate exploration on the part of the interviewer, in order to understand whether the respondent is touting the party line on negativity in advertising or is truly offended by the ad.

7. Don't let respondents choose the "favorite" execution or campaign for you. Isn't that the purpose of consumer research, you might ask. Showing several advertising options and asking respondents which they like best may seem the most democratic method, but it places them in an unnatural role which has little meaning. Musicians don't lead the orchestra, the conductor does. A respondent has no idea of the many factors involved in choosing the appropriate ad. Yes, their reactions are crucial, but analysis of the "winner" is the researcher's job. Backroom viewers will inevitably tally respondent preferences and favorites, and choose the winner by the numbers, which negates the value of qualitative research. Once these tallies exist, it is nearly impossible to produce any campaign with fewer favorite votes than another, no matter how qualitatively superior it is.

8. "Believability" is a worthless measurement. In almost every advertising research project, someone will suggest (or include in a preliminary discussion guide) the believability question: "Is this ad (or what they're saying) believable, or not?" This question serves no purpose. It implies that reality is inherently better than fantasy in the advertising realm, and who decided that? Are the Budweiser frogs or Nissan's Barbie and Ken "believable?" Do you care? What matters is that the advertising touches the hearts of consumers, not their reality checker.

9. After emotional issues, the most important information you'll hear is about the company's image. Advertising is about creating an image for a product, a product made by a company. Asking respondents what sort of image or impression they get about the company from the ad tells you a lot about the perceptions that will linger over time, and at the cash register. Ideally, and depending on the advertising strategy, you will hear comments such as "They care about me," "They're innovative," "They're a company you can trust," etc. Isn't that what it's all about?

10. Good creative work deserves the best research it can get. Remember that creative work is delicate and must be treated with both kid gloves and the respect it deserves. With the proper treatment, by someone familiar with the creative research process, a good ad's hidden wonders and strengths will come to the surface, because that researcher knows how to shine the cold light of consumer reality in the right direction.