Download RESEARCH AND ACCOUNT PLANNING

RESEARCH AND ACCOUNT PLANNING
Strategic Research is information gathering to enhance the creative strategy.
Process of collecting all relevant background information needed to make a decision.
Secondary Research - review all available published information about the topic
including: the product, company, industry, competition, sales reports, trade articles,
competitive advertising and marketing communications materials.
Why do we look at research? We’re looking for new insight.
Sources for secondary research: government organizations, trade organizations and
secondary research suppliers such as FIND/SVP, Lexis-Nexis, Off-the-Shelf
Publications, etc.
Primary Research - customized research, usually focus groups, surveys, phone
interviews, mail interviews, email interviews, etc.
Sources for primary research: There are hundreds of firms that will create a survey, etc.
But two big ones are Simmons Market Research Bureau and MediaMark Research Inc.
(MRI).
The Account Planning Process - is the process of using research efforts to gain more
information about the brand in it’s marketplace and the consumer’s perspective, and to
use that research to contribute directly to advertising development.
Account Planners are the people in an advertising agency who sift through the qualitative
data and the quantitative data and separate out the relevant information from the
irrelevant data.
Terminology
Qualitative data - how and why consumers behave the way they do
Quantitative data - numerical data such as exposure to ads, purchases, purchase history,
viewership ratings, etc.
The Strategy Document is the outcome of all this research. It usually includes the
following:
1. The Marketing Objective - it reviews the competitive situation and establishes a goal
for the campaign. It includes sales figures, market share of the brand and it’s major
competitiors; competitor’s advertising and promotions.
2. The product - presents any facts, opinions, perceptions, or reactions to the product
3. The target Audience - demographic and psychographic description of the campaign’s
target audience.
4. The Promise - which reward out of many should the advertising promise.
5. The brand Personality - dated irrelevant, happy, inaccurate
Terminology
Population - a group of people
Sample - using a much smaller number of people to represent the entire population
EVALUATIVE RESEARCH
Evaluative research is used to make final go/no-go decisions about finished or nearly
finished ads and to evaluate whether the advertising worked.
Seven types of research methods:
1. Memory tests - contact consumers and find out what they remember about an ad
Recall tests - consumers are called the night after watching a prime time commercial and
are asked: Do you remember seeing an ad for charcoal briquettes?
2. Persuasion tests - Consumers are first asked how likely they are to buy a specific
brand. They are exposed to the advertisement for that brand. After the exposure, they are
again asked what they intend to buy. Results are analyzed to determine whether intention
to buy has increased.
3.Direct Response Counts - an ad is run on television with an 800 number to call and
place an order, or a coupon is placed in a print ad or on a web site. The number of orders
are counted.
4. Communication tests - 1) Did the ad deliver the message it was intended to deliver? 2)
Did the ad deliver any messages it was not intended to deliver? 3) How did the
representatives of the target audience react to the message, characters, situation and the
tone?
5. Frame - by - frame - consumers press a dial to indicate moment by moment how they
are reacting to a television commercial.
6. In-market tests - tests that evaluate advertisements by measuring their influence on
sales.
7. Brand tracking - track the brand instead of individual advertising
RESEARCH CHALLENGES
Globalization - how to manage and communicate global brands in different local regions
and shift from studying differences to finding similarities.
New Media Technology - current research focuses on print advertising and 30 second tv
spots. How do evaluate email and web and new interactive advertising?