Why we are going about Advertising Research all wrong

There is no argument that advertising can be very effective, but there are different theories on what it is that makes advertising effective. It is only when we better understand how advertising works in the real world, that we can research it successfully.????

The Persuasion Model of Advertising?

For many years, advertising research has measured advertising according to the “Persuasion Model.” This model postulates that advertising is consumed by the viewer in a very rational, logical, systematic way and that each step of the process, from “Awareness”, “Comprehension”, “Conviction”, “Desire” and “Action”, can be measured. This model assumes that the audience is a like a blank canvas and that they are willing to devote high levels of attention to the communication.

Response to Advertising uses Low Involvement Processing?

But we know from our own experiences that when we are presented with an advertising communication, we are unlikely to be sitting up straight, giving the communication our full attention and rationally processing the message.???In an environment where consumers are inundated with 4,000-10,000 advertising messages a day (Forbes, 2017), this is asking far, far too much of them.?

In fact, the way in which we cope with such a plethora of advertising stimuli, is to use low involvement processing (Heath, 2001).??Most screen advertising is processed by the limbic and reptilian part of the brain, which is sensory and emotional, rather than the neocortex which is used for cognitive processing. And this helps explain the results of a study undertaken by the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising in 2007, whereby they studied 880 ads that had been submitted for advertising effectiveness over 25 years – their results showed that emotionally based campaigns outperformed rationally based campaigns on every single measure including sales, market share, profit, loyalty, penetration etc.?

Researching Consumer Response rather than Consumer Opinion

Therefore, research that focuses on consumer opinion, and cognitive consideration with questions such as “what do you think they are trying to do?”, “who do you think it is aimed at?”, “what are they trying to make you feel?”, is missing the point and can even be misleading.??

Instead, advertising research should be investigating consumer response, particularly their associations and emotional response. We need to find out how the advertising is affecting them, not whether they think it’s good marketing!?

As researchers we need to re-evaluate the way we go about testing advertising communications and the questions we ask, and this will be based on the way in which we believe advertising really works. Traditionally, focus group methodologies have adhered to the Persuasion Model of Advertising and the way in which we have tested advertising - running it past respondents twice, asking them to answer questions regarding the main message and ways to improve it - reflects this.?

But if we want the research to mimic the way advertising is processed in the real world,?we should be thinking about ways?to make the research evaluation low involvement and trying?to?keep the cognitive brain asleep so that it doesn’t start rationalising.?Rather than questioning consumers about their opinions, we should be reporting on what happened and how the advertising effected consumers. Rather than?“what did you feel about that ad?”?we could be asking?“what emotions did you have while the ad was playing?”.?Rather than asking,?“what was the main message of that ad?”,?we could be asking?“what is left in your mind after the ad has finished?”

It is only by understanding the positive (or negative) emotional engagement, how that relates to a brand benefit, how that contributes to the brand map in consumers’ minds, and how that leads (or doesn’t lead) to brand (re)evaluation and purchase propensity, that we can really understand how well the advertising communication is working.???