Advertising messages are everywhere. There are advertisements on radio, television, billboards, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, matchbook covers, gas pumps, shopping carts, clothing, and on. Advertising researchers want to answer questions such as should a certain product be packaged in blue or red? Is Cosmopolitan a better advertising buy than Vogue? Advertising research does not involve any special techniques; the methods discussed earlier— laboratory, survey, field research, focus groups, and content analysis—are in common use. Advertising Generally we can say that Advertising is a marketing communication and non- personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. Advertising is a means of communication with the users of a product or service. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/advertising Advertising research Advertising research is a specialized form of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising. Advertising research is the systematic gathering and analysis of information to help develop or evaluate advertising strategies, ads and commercials, and media campaigns. https://www.slideshare.net/PranavKumarOjha/advertising-research-13466787 So research in advertising is applied research, which attempts to solve a specific problem and is not concerned with theorizing or generalizing to other situations. Areas in advertising research There are three functional research areas in advertising these are 1. Copy research 2. Media research and

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Question4: research in advertising
Introduction
Advertising messages are everywhere. There are advertisements on radio,
television, billboards, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, matchbook covers, gas
pumps, shopping carts, clothing, and on. Advertising researchers want to answer
questions such as should a certain product be packaged in blue or red? Is
Cosmopolitan a better advertising buy than Vogue? Advertising research does not
involve any special techniques; the methods discussed earlier— laboratory, survey,
field research, focus groups, and content analysis—are in common use.
Advertising
Generally we can say that Advertising is a marketing communication and non-
personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea.
Advertising is a means of communication with the users of a product or service.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/advertising
Advertising research
Advertising research is a specialized form of marketing research conducted to
improve the efficiency of advertising.
Advertising research is the systematic gathering and analysis of information to help
develop or evaluate advertising strategies, ads and commercials, and media
campaigns.
https://www.slideshare.net/PranavKumarOjha/advertising-research-13466787
So research in advertising is applied research, which attempts to solve a specific
problem and is not concerned with theorizing or generalizing to other situations.
Areas in advertising research
There are three functional research areas in advertising these are
1. Copy research
2. Media research and

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3. Campaign assessment research.
The descriptions of these are in the following:
1. Copy research/ copy testing
Copy testing refers to research that helps develop effective advertisements and then
determines which of several advertisements is the most effective.
Copy testing takes place at every stage of the advertising process. Before a
campaign starts, copy pretesting indicates what to stress and what to avoid. After
the content of the ad is established, tests are performed to determine the most
effective way to structure the ideas.
In TV, a rough cut of an entire commercial might be produced. The rough cut is a
film or video version of the ad in which amateur actors are used, locations are
simplified, and the editing and narration lack the smoothness of broadcast (final
cut) commercials. In this way, variations in the ad can be tested without incurring
great expense.
There are several different ways to categorize copy testing methods. Perhaps the
most useful, summarized by Leckenby and Wedding (1982), suggests that there are
appropriate copy testing methods for each of the three dimensions of impact in the
persuasion process. Although the model suggests a linear process starting with the
cognitive dimension (knowing) and continuing through the affective dimension
(feeling) to the co native dimension (doing).
Typology of Copy Testing Effects
Dimension of Impact Typical Dependent Variables
Cognitive Attention
Exposure
Awareness
Recognition
Comprehension

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Recall
Engagement
Affective
Attitude change
Liking/disliking
Involvement
Co native
Intention to buy
Purchase behavior
The Cognitive Dimension
In the cognitive dimension, the key dependent variables are attention, awareness,
exposure, recognition, comprehension, and recall. Studies that measure attention to
advertising can use various methods.
One strategy involves a consumer jury, where a group of 50–100 consumers is
shown test ads and asked which ad was best at catching their attention.
A physiological measurement technique, known as an eye-tracking study is also
used to determine which parts of an ad are noticed. A camera records the
movement of the eye as it scans printed and graphic material.
A tachistoscope (or T-scope) is one way to measure recognition of an ad
Ad comprehension is an important factor in advertising research. One study found
that all 60 commercials used in a test were misunderstood by viewers (Jacoby &
Hofer, 1982). To guard against results such as these, advertising researchers
typically test new ads with focus groups to make sure their message is getting
across as intended.
The T-scope is also used to see how long it takes subjects to comprehend the theme
of an ad—an important consideration for outdoor advertising, where drivers may
have only a second or two of exposure.

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Awareness, exposure, and recall are determined by several related methods. The
print media use one measurement technique that taps these variables: Subjects are
shown a copy of a newspaper or magazine and are asked which advertisements
they remember seeing or reading. The results are used to tabulate a “reader traffic
score” for each ad.
This method is open to criticism because some respondents confuse the
advertisements or the publications in which they saw the ads, and some try to
please the interviewer by reporting that they saw more than they actually did
(prestige bias).
To control this problem, researchers often make use of aided recall techniques. For
instance, they might also show the respondent a list of advertisers, some whose
advertisements actually appeared in the publication and some did not. For obvious
reasons, this type of recall study is not entirely suitable for testing radio and
television commercials; a more commonly used method in such cases is the
telephone survey.
The newest measure in advertising and media research is called engagement,
which is a multidimensional measure that attempts to determine how involved a
consumer is with an advertisement or media content. The method combines
cognitive measures with some of the affective and conative measures discussed in
the next sections.
Engagement can be measured in several ways. Researchers may ask about recall of
ad, if the consumer liked the ad, and if the consumer talked about the content of the
ad with others.
The Affective Dimension
The affective dimension usually involves research into whether consumers’
attitudes toward a particular product have changed because of exposure to an ad or
a campaign.
The techniques used to study the affective dimension include projective tests,
theater testing, physiological measures, semantic differential scales, and rating
scales.

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Projective tests provide an alternative to the straightforward “Do you like this
ad?” Approach. Instead, respondents are asked to draw a picture or complete a
story that involves the ad or the product mentioned in the ad.
Theater tests involve bringing an audience to a special facility where they are
shown a TV program that is embedded with test commercials.
Four physiological tests are used in this area of advertising research. In the pupil
meter test, a tiny camera focused on the subject’s eye measures the amount of pupil
dilation that occurs while the person is looking at an ad. Changes in pupil diameter
are recorded because findings from psychophysiology suggest that people tend to
respond to appealing stimuli with dilation (enlargement) of their pupils.
Semantic differential scales and rating scales are used most often to measure
attitude change. For these measurements to be most useful, it is necessary to (1)
obtain a picture of consumers’ attitudes before exposure to the ad, (2) expose
consumers to the ad or ads under examination, and (3) remeasure their attitude
after exposure.
To diminish the difficulties associated with achieving all three goals in testing
television ads, many researchers prefer a forced-exposure method. In this
technique, respondents are invited to a theater for a special screening of a TV
program. Before viewing the program, they are asked to fill out questionnaires
concerning their attitudes toward several different products, one of which is of
interest to the researchers.
Next, the respondents watch the TV show, which contains one or more
commercials for the product under investigation as well as ads for other products.
When the show is over, the respondents complete another questionnaire concerning
product attitudes. Change in evaluation is the essential variable of interest. The
same basic method can be used in testing attitudes toward print ads except that the
testing is done individually, often at the respondent’s home.
The importance of the affective dimension was emphasized by Walker and
Dubitsky (1994), who noted that the degree of liking expressed by consumers
toward a commercial was significantly related to awareness, recall, and greater
persuasive impact. Indeed, several advertising researchers have suggested that

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liking an ad is one of the most important factors in determining its impact (Haley,
1994).
The Conative Dimension
The conative dimension deals with actual consumer behavior, and, in many
instances, it is the most important of all dependent variables. The two main
categories of behavior usually measured are buying predisposition and actual
purchasing behavior.
In the first category, the usual design gathers pre-campaign predisposition data and
re-interviews the subjects after the advertising has been in place. Subjects are
typically asked a question such as: “If you were going shopping tomorrow to buy
breakfast cereal, which brand would you buy?” This might be followed by “Would
you consider buying any other brands?”
Some researchers (Haskins, 1976) suggest using a buying intention scale, which
instructs respondents to check the one position on the scale that best fits their
intention. Such a scale might look like this:
- I’ll definitely buy this cereal as soon as I can.
-I’ll probably buy this cereal sometime.
-I might buy this cereal, but I don’t know when.
-I’ll probably never buy this cereal.
-I wouldn’t eat this cereal even if somebody gave it to me.
The scale allows advertisers to see how consumers’ buying preferences change
during and after the campaign.
Two studies illustrate how researchers can examine behavioral response. Bates and
Buckley (2000) examined the influence of exposure to TV commercials that urged
people to return their 2000 census forms on the actual rate of returned forms. They
found that exposure to advertising was related to knowing more about the census,
but that there was no relationship between exposure to the ads and actually
returning a form.

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Burton, Lictenstein, and Netemeyer (1999) discovered that exposure to an
advertising sales flyer for retail supermarkets resulted in more than a 100%
increase in the number of advertised products that were purchased.
MEDIA RESEARCH
Two important terms in media research are reach and frequency.
Reach is the total number of households or persons that are supposedly exposed to
a message in a particular medium at least once over a certain time period.
Frequency refers to the number of exposures to the same message that each
household or person receives.
Media research falls into three general categories:
1. Studies of the size and composition of an audience of a particular medium or
media (reach studies),
2. Studies of the relative efficiency of advertising exposures provided by various
combinations of media (reach and frequency studies), and
3. Studies of the advertising activities of competitors.
The descriptions of these are given below:
Audience Size and Composition
Analyses of audiences are probably the most commonly used advertising studies in
print and electronic media research.
The audience size of a newspaper or magazine is commonly measured in terms of
the number of copies distributed per issue. This number, which is called the
publication’s circulation, includes all copies delivered to subscribers as well as
those bought at newsstands or from other sellers.
Three techniques are used to measure readership. The most rigorous is the unaided
recall method where respondents are asked whether they have read any newspapers
or magazines in the past month (or other time period). If the answer is “yes,”
subjects are asked to specify the magazines or newspapers they read.

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A second technique is aided recall, where the interviewer names several
publications and asks if the respondent has read any of them lately. Each time the
respondent claims to have read a publication, the interviewer asks whether he or
she remembers seeing the most recent copy. The interviewer may jog a
respondent’s memory by describing the front page or the cover. Finally, the
respondent is asked to recall anything that was seen or read in that particular issue.
The third technique, called the recognition method, involves showing respondents
the logo or cover of a publication. For each publication respondents have seen or
read, the interviewer produces a copy and the respondents’ leaf through it to
identify the articles or stories they recognize. Respondents who definitely
remember reading the publication are counted in its audience.
Another variable to consider in determining the advertising efficiency (or media
efficiency) of a newspaper or magazine is the number of times a person reads each
issue.
Perhaps the most important gauge of advertising efficiency is the composition of
the audience. It matters little if 100,000 people see an advertisement for farm
equipment if only a few of them, or none, are in the market for such products.
Frequency of Exposure in Media Schedules
In some situations, advertisers with a small advertising or promotion budget are
limited to using only one medium.
However, advertisers with a good budget often use several media simultaneously,
which is known as synergistic advertising or synergistic marketing. The task is to
determine which media combination will provide the greatest reach and frequency
for the product or service.
Stepwise analysis is called an iterative model because the same series of
instructions to the computer is repeated over and over with slight modifications
until a predetermined best or optimal solution is reached.
Decision calculus models make use of an objective function, a mathematical
statement that provides a quantitative value for a given media combination (also
known as a schedule). This value represents the schedule’s effectiveness in

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providing advertising exposure. The advertising researcher determines which
schedule offers the maximum exposure for a given product by calculating the
objective functions of various media schedules.
Media Research by Private Firms
As mentioned earlier, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) supplies advertisers
with data on the circulation figures of newspapers and magazines. As of 2009,
ABC measured the circulation of about 75% of all print media vehicles in the
United States and Canada. ABC requires publishers to submit a detailed report of
their circulation every six months; it verifies these reports by sending field workers
to conduct an audit at each publication. The auditors typically examine records of
the publications’ press runs, newsprint bills, or other invoices for paper, as well as
transcripts of circulation records and related files.
Competitors’ Activities
Advertisers like to know the media choices of their competitors, which can help
them, avoid making mistakes of less successful competitors and imitate the
strategies of more successful competitors.
In addition, advertisers seeking to promote a new product who know that the
leading competitors are using the same media mix might feel that their approach is
valid (but this is not always true).
An advertiser can collect data on competitors’ activities either by setting up a
special research team or by subscribing to the services of a syndicated research
company. Since the job of monitoring the media activity of a large number of firms
advertising in several media is so difficult, most advertisers rely on a syndicated
service.
Advertisers also find it helpful to know what competitors are saying, and many
advertising agencies conduct systematic content analyses of the messages in a
sample of the competitors’ advertisements to obtain the information.
CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT RESEARCH
Campaign assessment research builds on copy and media research, but its research
strategies are generally different from those used in the other areas. In general,

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there are two kinds of assessment research. The pretest/posttest method takes
measurements before and after the campaign, and tracking studies assess the
impact of the campaign by measuring effects at several times during the progress
of the campaign.
The major advantage of a tracking study is that it provides important feedback to
the advertiser while the campaign is still in progress.
The objective of the campaign should be spelled out before the campaign is
executed so that assessment research is most useful.
Tracking studies also rely on personal or telephone interviews for data collection.
Thomas (1997) notes that tracking studies can be continuous (a certain number of
interviews are conducted every day or every week for a certain time period) or
pulsed (the interviews are conducted in waves, perhaps every three or six months).
Tracking studies are useful, but they do have drawbacks. Perhaps the biggest
problem is cost. Tracking studies typically require large samples; in fact, a sample
of less than 1,500 cases per year is unusual.
QUALITATIVE TECHNIQUES IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
Advertising researchers have developed unique ways to investigate consumer
attitudes and behavior.
Projective Techniques
One approach involves projective techniques. Most readers are probably familiar
with the Rorschach ink blot test, one of the most famous projective techniques.
Researchers who use these methods argue that they provide a person with an
unthreatening situation that might reveal the respondent’s unconscious or deep-
seated beliefs.
Some specific types of projective techniques include association, immersion, and
role-playing. The association approach is the familiar “What is the first word that
pops into your mind?” technique that has been used in psychotherapy and other
areas.
The role-playing method presents the respondent with a series of drawings or

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photographs that seem to tell a story and asks him or her to assume the role of a
person shown in the photos and complete the story.
A variation of this technique can be used in focus groups where a couple members
of the group are assigned roles to play and the rest of the group becomes the
audience.
The completion technique involves presenting words, phrases, or questions to
respondents who are then asked to complete them. For example, one item might be
“When I think of coffee, I think of.” Or “If my favorite brand of coffee were a
movie star, it would be.”
Advantages and Disadvantages
Probably the biggest disadvantage of projective techniques is the difficulty in data
analysis. The questions can be complicated, and the answers are usually phrased
indirectly, making it difficult to draw concrete conclusions about a specific brand
or product.
It is also difficult to sort out the truly meaningful responses—those that might
shape purchasing decisions—from the large number of responses that are obtained.
A second disadvantage is one common to qualitative data. How valid are the
responses?
A final disadvantage is that with projective techniques, it takes a relatively long
amount of time to collect and analyze the data.
On the plus side, projective techniques provide a substantial amount of rich and
detailed data.
They can also provide in-depth detail about closely held attitudes or perceptions
that might not be uncovered via surveys or other quantitative methods.
Respondent Diaries
The diary method is used extensively in calculating the ratings of radio and
television programs, but it can also be used as a qualitative data-gathering tool.

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The diary method is basically an extension of the observational method. It allows a
researcher to gather information from situations that cannot be easily observed,
such as in a respondent’s home or while an informant is on the road.
A common arrangement is to provide informants with small diaries that can be
carried in a pocket or purse and to instruct them to keep track of a certain behavior
as well as their feelings, attitudes, and emotions while performing that behavior.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Diary entries are described in the consumers’ natural language.
The data may allow a researcher to better understand the respondents’ perspectives
concerning a specific product or service.
In short, it lets the researcher see the world through the eyes of the consumer.
Diaries can be kept by a panel of respondents to provide a record of reactions and
feelings over time. For example, diary entries may reveal patterns of shopping
behavior that might otherwise be overlooked.
On the downside, because diaries require a lot of respondent time and energy,
many people are unwilling to participate in such a study.
There is also a high mortality rate because many respondents who initially agree to
accept a diary decide later that it is too much work and stop filling it out.
Finally, the diary method works best with people who can express themselves in
writing.
Directed Observation
This is a variation on the participant observation method. There may be times
when advertising researchers want to find out specific information about various
behaviors of the target market. In this situation, the researcher observes one or two
narrowly focused activities. Two types of directed observation are accompanied
shopping and pantry checks.
As the name suggests, accompanied shopping consists of the researcher sharing the
shopping experience with informants.

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Advantages and Disadvantages
One advantage of directed observation is that it goes beyond gauging such abstract
concepts as brand image or brand personality.
It takes place in a real-world environment and investigates actual purchasing
behavior, the activity of interest to most advertisers. Moreover, it gives researchers
a window into the often overlooked everyday, practical considerations that go into
product purchases.
On the downside, directed observation requires that researchers first obtain
permissions from those who are being studied.
Conclusion
Everything we need to know about advertising research. The advertising research
is to be conducted to measure the advertising impact or the result of the effort with
the help of detailed study on advertising objectives, product appeals, copy testing,
and media effectiveness.