5 limitations in traditional measures of marketing effectiveness

In an earlier post, we looked at the vital role emotions play in decision making. Before we look at some of the emerging technologies that can help marketers get to those feelings and emotions, let’s take a look at the approaches to measuring marketing effectiveness which are being used at the moment.

Traditional approaches have tended to rely on focus groups and quantitative ad tests. These tend to involve self reported feelings and emotions, verbal questions and answers and, more recently, moment-to-moment emotional responses reported utilising dials and picture scales.

While these approaches have strengths, put very simply they also have a number of limitations:

• People are often not aware of what they feel, of why they feel a certain way or why they make a certain choice. Yet they can always provide an answer. The question is: are we really getting at the truth?
• People may not wish to reveal their inner secrets to someone else if they believe that perhaps their feelings are not socially acceptable to the others they are talking with
• Focus groups and quantitative ad tests are very reliant on words and introspection. More recently facial recognition ‘emoticons’ and dials seek to overcome the verbal bias. However, these are also post cognitive and have their limitations with the person still having to reflect – or cognitively process - how they feel before selecting the picture or turning the dial
• Question and answer has limited effectiveness because emotions are processed in a part of the brain which does not have direct access to words. What is said about feelings and emotions is filtered and therefore potentially changed in ways that make it very hard to interpret

Similar issues apply to advertising research. In addition:

• For advertising to influence choice requires enduring, relevant and personally meaningful memories to be laid down which are linked to the brand. Brand-linked long term memories need to be created if advertising is to be acted upon later at the point of brand choice.

In focus groups and quantitative ad tests, people are often asked to recall elements of the ad that they like or dislike, or that stand out, and this is used as a measure of effectiveness and memorability. However, according to some research, emotional memories are not well recalled in spontaneous recall tests of memory such as brand prompted ad awareness and spontaneous ad recall. Whilst these are effective measures of what comes out of memory, they do not measure what goes into memory which is much more important in real life conditions of advertising and brand exposure and choice. Since it is becoming more widely understood that effectively putting down long term memories is significantly enhanced by emotion, marketers are recognising the need for direct physiological measures of emotional response in order to get to the ‘heart’ of decision making about their brands.

In our next post, we’ll take a detailed look at why physiological measures represent a significant step forward for research and marketing measurement.

INSIDE STORY and Nestlé present neuro to world audience

We’re very excited that we, together with Nestlé, were invited to showcase the 2010 Australian Grand Effie Award-winning Allen’s Lollies marionette doll campaign at the Festival of NewMR - a global market research virtual event which was held last Friday (15th April).

It was held over 12 hours starting with Asia Pacific and Europe and then moved to the USA as the day progressed.

The NewMR virtual event is a regular event about the newest approaches in market research and this time looked at the impact and potential of neuroscience and biometrics.

We integrated the neuro (EEG) - or more specifically the patented steady state topography (SST) developed by our partner Richard Silberstein - with qualitative research to add clarity and understanding that could overlay the SST/EEG’s precision and accuracy.

Using this method, our research identified two key moments in the test photomatic where it was essential to optimise both strong branding/brand messaging and emotional impact. At these 2 key points memory encoding was strong - associated with high levels of engagement. With the neuro we were able to identify with pinpoint accuracy the scenes where strong branding and high levels of memory encoding needed to be synchronised.

At a third moment in the ad all memory encoding traces dipped and there was a withdrawal response. This point in the ad needed to be understood with full clarity. The meaning behind these results needed sensitive probing in qualitative research and it was through this that we discovered the disconnect between our hero, Ellie the marionette, and a little girl. This moment was then considerably refined by creating eye contact and hand waving between the two, which established the warm relationship required.

And if you’re wondering about results – we think this is pretty impressive:
Before release of the TVC, Allen’s lollies was losing share. In the 6 months post campaign, Allen’s exceeded targets by 20.5%, growing Allen’s leadership from 2% to 7%. The campaign grew sales by $2.6M against its 2008 performance, the highest 6 months revenue in 3 years. In grocery alone Allen’s grew by 25% in the first 13 weeks post campaign launch. No other product or market activity was happening during this period, so the results were delivered solely by this campaign.

Hence the ad was a deserving winner of the 2010 Australian Grand Effie Award for advertising effectiveness.

Quite apart from results, there was also some media buzz about the event. Here’s what the trade media publication AdNews said about it and our presentation: http://www.adnews.com.au/news/nestle-backs-neuro-ad-testing

When so much in research is strictly confidential it is refreshing to be able to share the smiles!

We also really enjoyed sharing ideas with other leading MR practitioners across the globe as the impact of neuroscience and biometrics takes on even greater significance in the NewMR world.

Bring on this brave new world!

For more information on the Neuro Lab©, click here.

www.insidestory.com.au

The Festival of NewMR was held on April 15, 2011 from Sydney 6pm-8pm AEST. For further information, please visit: http://newmr.org/page/neuroscience-1

Heart versus head: Which one dominates decision-making?

We used to think that people make choices based on rational thoughts that changed attitudes and then behaviour. In other words, thoughts guiding actions to the best outcome. However, in the last decade, neuroscience has underpinned the conclusion that consumers are largely incapable of making choices without engaging their emotions.

This explains why we are more likely to choose the soft drink that blind taste tests have proven doesn't taste as good. This is why we believe the ATM that looks better – is more aesthetic – is also easier to use.

This is why we will buy from people we like more and why we’ll also say and believe they had the better offer. This may seem irrational.

The emotional content in decision-making also explains why there have been new products in the market that meet rational needs better than other products, yet fail because they don’t meet psycho-emotional needs.

Clearly, product choices are influenced by both rational and psycho-emotional forces.

Clinical evidence of this has been provided by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. His work has shown that decision-making is reliant on emotions in conditions of uncertainty. Put very simply, good and fast decisions are made by tapping in to recollected feelings or what we call ‘gut feel’. Based on clinical studies he concludes that emotions are vital to decision-making (see A Damasio; Somatic Marker Theory. The Feeling of Knowing).

The relevance of this to understanding consumer behaviour is increasingly revealed in published studies. Consistent brand investments, for example, have been shown to change thinking and choices without awareness.

Our interest lies in meeting the challenge of trying to measure the true effectiveness of marketing effort as well as optimise communications. A growing number of researchers and marketers are now looking for ways to directly access the decision-making process through real time psycho-physiological means.

We hope you will join us when we discuss some of these measurement tools in future posts.