CH-16 Advertising Media: Planning and Analysis – Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications : Book Guide

ADVERTISING MEDIA: PLANNING AND ANALYSIS Answers to Discussion Questions Why is target audience selection the critical first step in formulating a media strategy? Answer: Successful media selection necessitates careful pinpointing of the target audience. Failure to precisely define the audience results in wasted advertising exposures as the result of either failing to reach prime prospects or reaching nonprime prospects. Compare and contrast TRPs and GRPs as media selection criteria. Answer: Gross rating points (GRPs) reflect the gross weight that a particular advertising schedule has delivered. GRPs indicate the total coverage, or duplicated audience, exposed to a particular advertising schedule. Target Rating Points (TRPs) adjust vehicle ratings to reflect just those individuals who match the advertiser’s target audience. Thus, GRPs represent some degree of wasted coverage insofar as some audience members fall outside the target audience the advertiser wishes to reach. TRPs represent a better indicator of a media schedule’s non-wasted weight. GRPs equal gross weight, some of which is wasted; TRPs equal net weight, none of which is wasted. Contrast the term reach with its related terms net coverage and unduplicated audience. Answer: Net coverage or unduplicated audience are actually more descriptive labels for what reach actually is and how it is calculated. By definition, reach is simply the percentage of an audience reached 1+ times by an advertisement during a four-week period. This can be seen in Table 16.1 which shows that 90 percent of the 10-member target audience is reached 1 or more times over the four-week period. There is no duplication in the sense that each person is or is not reached (90 percent are reached; 10 percent are not reached). Net coverage is thus 90 percent. A television advertising schedule produced the following vehicle frequency distribution:
f Percentage f Percentage f +
0 31.5 100.0
1 9.3 68.5
2 7.1 59.2
3 6.0 52.1
4 5.2 46.1
5 4.6 40.9
6 4.1 36.3
7 3.7 32.2
8 3.4 28.5
9 3.1 25.1
10+ 22.0 22.0
What is the reach for this advertising schedule? What is the effective reach? How many GRPs does this schedule generate? What is the frequency for this schedule? Answers: 68.5 (i.e., % f + at f = 1) 52.1 (i.e., % f + at f = 3) 410.9 (i.e., GRPs = (1  9.3)  (2  7.1)  (3  6.0)  … (10  22)) 5.9 (i.e., frequency = GRPs  reach) Assume that the TV advertising schedule in Question 4 cost $2 million and generated 240 million gross impressions. What are the CPM and CPP? Answer: CPM = 2,000,000/240,000 = $8.33 CPP = 2,000,000/410.9 = $4,867.36 A publication issue called the 100 Leading National Advertisers in Advertising Age is an invaluable source for determining how much money companies invest in advertising. Go to your library and find the most recent version of this issue. Identify the advertising expenditures and the media used in advertising the following companies: Apple, General Mills, Nike, and Walt Disney Company. Answer: The real-time data or go to a library to retrieve the most recent version of Advertising Age or any other publication. However, you can access this information by visiting your local library or subscribing to online databases that provide access to Advertising Age or similar publications. These sources typically compile data on advertising expenditures and media usage by various companies, including Apple, General Mills, Nike, and Walt Disney Company, among others. Once you have access to the publication, you can locate the relevant information for the specified companies. With reference to the three-exposure hypothesis, explain the difference between three exposures to an advertising message versus three exposures to an advertising vehicle. Answer: The difference is that vehicle exposure, or what is referred to as opportunity to see an ad (OTS), is not tantamount to advertising exposure. Hence, the number of consumers who actually are exposed to any particular advertising message carried in a vehicle is less than the number of people who are exposed to the vehicle that carries the message. When an advertiser uses the latter, what implicit assumption is that advertiser making? Answer: Exposure to an advertising message means that a viewer actually sees the advertisement placed by the advertiser. Exposure to the vehicle means that the viewer sees the magazine, television program, or other vehicle that carries the advertisement, but may not actually see the advertisement. As a result, exposure to the message is generally less than exposure to the vehicle. Advertisers often make the implicit assumption that the two concepts are equal. Furthermore, aside from this general misunderstanding of the three-exposure hypothesis, it must also be recognized that no specific number of minimum exposures is absolutely correct for all advertising situations. Describe in your own words the fundamental logic underlying the principle of recency (or what also is referred to as the shelf-space model of advertising). Is this model always the best model to apply in setting media allocations over time? Answer: The power of the first exposure to a message is the basis for the shelf-space model of advertising. The strategic recommendation that follows from this assumption is that the advertiser’s message should be available when a consumer is looking for information about products in the category produced by the advertiser, e.g., when a consumer is ready to purchase. Continuous advertising is the method for achieving this goal. A TV program has a rating of 17.6. With approximately 114.7 million television households in the United States as of 2012, what is that program’s CPM if a 30-second commercial costs $600,000? Now assume that an advertiser’s target audience consists only of people aged 25 to 54, which constitute 62 percent of the program’s total audience. What is the CPM-TM in this case? Answer: A rating of 17.6 means that the program is watched in 17.6 percent of the 114.7 million households that have televisions, or approximately 20.19 million households. The cost of the 30 second ad is $600,000. Therefore, the CPM (cost per thousand), which is the ad cost  number of total contacts (expressed in thousands), is ($600,000 ÷ 20,190) = $29.71. The target audience of people aged 25 to 54 comprises 62 percent of the total audience or 12.5 million. CPM-TM, which is the ad cost  number of target market contacts (expressed in thousands), is ($600,000 ÷ 12,500) = $48.00. Which is more important for an advertiser: maximizing reach or maximizing frequency? Explain in detail. Answer: The advertising objective determines the relative importance of reach versus frequency. If the advertising task is to introduce a new product or a new feature for an existing product, frequency is important as an educational tool. If the advertising task is less complex, such as reminding consumers of an established brand, reach is more important than frequency. Reach will be lower for an advertised brand if the entire advertising budget during a four-week period is devoted to advertising exclusively on a single program than if the same budget is allocated among a variety of TV programs. Why? Answer: The single program will have more duplicated audience than a variety of TV programs. Allocating the entire advertising budget during a four-week period exclusively to advertising on a single TV program will likely result in a lower reach compared to allocating the same budget among a variety of TV programs. This is because: 1. Limited Audience: Advertising exclusively on a single TV program restricts the brand's exposure to only the audience of that particular program. While the program may have a sizable viewership, it represents only a portion of the total TV audience. As a result, the brand's message reaches a smaller pool of potential consumers, reducing its overall reach. 2. Audience Overlap: Different TV programs attract different demographics and audience segments. By advertising across a variety of TV programs, the brand can reach a broader and more diverse audience. In contrast, advertising exclusively on a single program may limit the brand's ability to reach certain demographic groups that may not be part of that program's audience. 3. Frequency Cap: When advertising on a single TV program, the brand may reach the same viewers repeatedly over the four-week period, resulting in diminishing returns. In contrast, allocating the budget across multiple programs allows for greater frequency dispersion, ensuring that the brand's message reaches a larger number of unique viewers. 4. Risk of Saturation: Concentrating the entire budget on a single program may lead to audience fatigue or oversaturation, causing viewers to tune out or become less receptive to the brand's message. By diversifying across multiple programs, the brand can avoid this risk and maintain audience interest and engagement over time. Overall, allocating the advertising budget among a variety of TV programs enables the brand to maximize its reach and exposure to different audience segments, leading to a more effective and efficient advertising campaign compared to exclusive advertising on a single program. Following are the ratings and number of ad insertions on five cable TV programs designated as C1 through C5: C1 (rating = 7; insertions = 6); C2 (rating = 4; insertions = 12); C3 (rating = 3; insertions = 20); C4 (rating = 5; insertions = 10); C5 (rating = 6; insertions = 15). How many GRPs would be obtained from this cable TV advertising schedule? Answer: The sum of each TV program’s ratings  placements will give the GRPs. Therefore, GRPs = (7  6)  (4  12)  (3  20)  (5  10)  (6  15) = 290. Assume that in Canada there are 14 million TV households. A popular TV program, Hockey Night in Canada, aired at 6 p.m. and had a rating of 5.7 and a 10 share. At the 6 p.m. airtime, how many TV sets were tuned into this or another program? (Hint: Ratings are based on total households, whereas share is based on just the households that have their TV sets on at a particular time, in this case at 6 p.m. Because the numerator value remains constant in both the calculation of ratings and share values, by simple algebraic manipulation you can determine from the rating information the number of households with their sets on.) Answer: 798,000: 14 million TVHH, 5.7 rating means 798,000 HH tuned to show (14 million  0.057 = 798,000). Share is equal to the number of households tuned to a particular show divided by the number of households using TV. Share was given as 10, so the number of households using TV is equal to 798,000 divided by 0.10, which equals 7.98 million households. MEASURING AD MESSAGE EFFECTIVENESS Answers to Discussion Questions It is desirable that the measurement of advertising effectiveness focuses on sales response rather than on some precursor to sales, yet measuring sales response to advertising is typically difficult. What complicates the measurement of sales response to advertising? To answer this question, please return to Chapter 8 and the section on using sales as an objective for marcom programs, as well as the Marcom Insight in this chapter. Answer: Creating sales is the ultimate objective of advertising, and, therefore, determining what impact an advertising campaign has on sales is a desirable objective. The difficulty of doing so, however, arises from the fact that a number of factors determine a brand’s sales volume, of which advertising is just one factor. Partialing out the specific effect of advertising is a near impossibility in many situations. A further complication arises from the fact that advertising’s impact on sales is often lagged rather than immediate. PACT principle 2 states that a good copytesting system should establish how results will be used in advance of each copy test. Explain the specific meaning and importance of this copytesting principle. Construct illustrations of an anticipated result lacking a sufficient action standard and one with a suitable standard. Answer: The objective of PACT principle 2 is to establish agreement between the researcher and client prior to conducting copy testing. Specifying how research results will be used before data are collected ensures that all parties agree on the research goals and reduces the chance of conflicting interpretations of test results. The principle’s intent is to encourage the use of action standards that, in advance of actual testing, establish the test results that must be achieved for a test advertisement to receive full media distribution. What’s the distinction between pre- and posttesting forms of advertising research? Which in your opinion is more important? Be sure to justify your response. Answer: Pretesting messages is performed during developmental stages (prior to actual placement in advertising media) and posttesting messages is performed after they have been aired or printed. Pretesting is performed to eliminate ineffective ads before they are ever run, while posttesting is conducted to determine whether messages have achieved established objectives. It is difficult to say which is more important because it is desirable to measure effectiveness before committing to media expenditures, and it is desirable to assess effectiveness after the campaign due to accountability pressures as well as to learn how to improve. The Bruzzone test is based on a measure of recognition in comparison to day-after-recall testing, which, of course, is based on a recall measure. Present an argument as to why Bruzzone recognition measurement might be more appropriate than recall measurement in attempting to determine the effectiveness of television commercials. To facilitate your discussion, consider the difference between multiple-choice testing (a form of recognition measurement) and essay testing (a form of recall measurement). Answer: Recognition and recall both represent elements of consumers’ memories for advertising information, but recognition measures, which can be equated with multiple-choice test questions, tap a more superficial level of memory compared with recall measures, which are similar to essay questions. Recognition is a lower level of brand awareness than recall. Because television is a low-involvement medium, it might be more appropriate to measure recognition rather than recall. Offer your interpretation of the following quote presented earlier in the chapter: “If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” Answer: The point of this quote is that advertising research is crucial in order to measure the effects that advertisements have so that improvements can be made on a continuous basis. If you were an account executive in an advertising agency, what would you tell clients to convince them to use (or not to use) the GfK MRI Starch Ad Readership Studies? Answer: The studies measure consumers’ abilities to recognize magazine advertisements. An account executive who opposes this service might tell his or her clients that Starch scores are invalid because they measure claimed recognition rather than actual recognition. Claimed recognition scores are biased on how well a product and brand are known and liked. On the other hand, an account executive who favors the use of Starch scores might acknowledge the difficulty of measuring past exposure to magazine advertisements. She or he might then contend that the scores, although perhaps systematically biased, are useful nonetheless because the advertiser can compare scores for a specific advertisement against benchmark scores (norms) and determine whether the ad has performed better or worse than the norms. A test of television advertising effectiveness performed by BehaviorScan will cost you, as brand manager of a new brand of cereal, over $250,000. Why might this be a prudent investment in comparison to spending $50,000 to perform an awareness study? Answer: An awareness study simply determines the percentage of the target audience that is aware of the advertised brand name. This is important information, especially in the case of a new product, but awareness testing alone does not tell the brand manager whether an advertising campaign is capable of moving merchandise off retail shelves. By comparison, BehaviorScan provides immediate feedback concerning a commercial’s ability to create consumer response at the point of purchase. Assume that several years from now, after you have graduated college and begun a career, you open your mail one day and find a letter from SymphonyIRI Group requesting you to become a BehaviorScan panel member. Would you have any reservations about agreeing to do this? Assume that the letter is from ACNielsen, instead of SymphonyIRI, requesting your participation in ScanTrack. What would be your reservations, if any, in this case? Answer: The answer to this question will be individually based. It will also depend on the value placed on the time required to participate in the panels and the potential prizes received for participation. For BehaviorScan, individuals may object to the requirement that all family members must use the scanning card when shopping. On the other hand, ScanTrack panel members must put up with the inconvenience of doing their own scanning at home (including items purchased, coupons, and features that influenced purchases), and submitting the information to ACNielsen weekly. If I received a letter from SymphonyIRI Group requesting me to become a BehaviorScan panel member, I might initially have reservations about agreeing to participate. These reservations could stem from concerns about privacy, time commitment, and the potential intrusion into my personal purchasing habits. I would want to carefully consider how my data would be used, who would have access to it, and whether it aligns with my values and comfort level. However, if the letter were from ACNielsen requesting my participation in ScanTrack, my reservations might be somewhat different. While many of the same concerns about privacy and data usage would still apply, I might also consider the reputation and track record of ACNielsen compared to SymphonyIRI Group. Depending on what I know about each company's practices and how they handle consumer data, I might feel more or less comfortable participating. Overall, my reservations would likely revolve around issues of privacy, data security, and the potential implications of sharing my purchasing behavior with a third party. I would want to weigh the benefits of participating, such as potentially contributing to market research and improving products and services, against these concerns before making a decision. Select three national television commercials for well-known brands, identify the objective(s) each appears to be attempting to accomplish, and then propose a procedure for how you would go about testing the effectiveness of each commercial. Be specific. Answer: This exercise should be assigned two class periods in advance of the date it is due for in-class discussion. There are three national television commercials for well-known brands along with their pparent objectives and proposed procedures for testing their effectiveness: 1. Commercial: Nike - "Dream Crazy" Objective: The objective of this commercial is to inspire and empower viewers by showcasing stories of athletes overcoming challenges and achieving greatness. It aims to associate the Nike brand with values such as determination, perseverance, and social activism. Procedure for Testing Effectiveness: • Conduct pre-testing with a sample audience to gauge initial reactions and perceptions of the commercial's message, imagery, and effectiveness in conveying Nike's brand values. • Measure brand awareness and brand association before and after exposure to the commercial through surveys and focus groups. • Use social media listening tools to monitor online conversations and sentiment surrounding the commercial, including shares, likes, comments, and mentions. • Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, online searches for Nike products, and sales metrics to assess the commercial's impact on consumer behavior and purchase intent. 2. Commercial: Coca-Cola - "Share a Coke" Objective: The objective of this commercial is to promote Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign, which personalizes Coca-Cola bottles with people's names and encourages sharing and social connection. Procedure for Testing Effectiveness: • Measure brand recall and message retention among viewers to assess the commercial's effectiveness in communicating the "Share a Coke" concept. • Conduct surveys and focus groups to evaluate consumer perceptions and attitudes towards the campaign, including likability, relevance, and likelihood of participation. • Monitor social media engagement and user-generated content related to the campaign, such as photos of personalized Coke bottles shared by consumers. • Analyze sales data and redemption rates for personalized Coke bottles to determine the impact of the commercial on consumer behavior and campaign ROI. 3. Commercial: Apple - "Shot on iPhone" Series Objective: The objective of the "Shot on iPhone" commercial series is to showcase the quality and capabilities of iPhone cameras by featuring stunning visuals and creative photography captured by iPhone users. Procedure for Testing Effectiveness: • Assess audience engagement and emotional response to the commercials through biometric measurements such as heart rate monitoring and facial expression analysis. • Use eye-tracking technology to measure attention and focus on key elements of the commercials, such as imagery, text, and product shots. • Conduct post-viewing surveys and interviews to gather feedback on the perceived quality of the visuals, the persuasiveness of the message, and the likelihood of considering an iPhone for photography. • Analyze social media metrics such as views, shares, and user-generated content inspired by the commercials to evaluate their virality and impact on brand perception. By implementing these testing procedures, advertisers can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their television commercials in achieving their objectives and informing future advertising strategies. Television commercials are tested in various stages of completion, including storyboards, animatics, photomatics, ripamatics, liveamatics, and finished commercials (see IMC Focus). What reservations might you have concerning the ability to project results from testing pre-finished commercials to actual marketplace results with real commercials? Be specific and refer to the PACT principles where appropriate. Answer: The main concern is the degree of validity between the pre-finished stimulus ad and the actual production ad. If the ads are not remarkably similar, the researcher runs the risk of testing an ad that is perceived as being significantly different than the finished ad. Ads do not exist in a vacuum—competitors are also running and changing ads, and a competitor can change ads while new ads are running. This alone can change associations customers may have about products and positioning of other possible choices. Also, clutter may interact differently with pre-finished ads versus finished ads. Research audiences know that the ads are sample ads because of the unfinished nature; this can raise involvement and cause a different type of processing than would be expected for a finished ad. Specific PACT principles that may relate to the question include #5 (i.e., consideration of whether the advertising stimulus should be exposed more than once), #6 (i.e., alternative executions be tested in the same degree of finish), #7 (i.e., provide controls to avoid the bias normally found in the exposure context), #8 (i.e., take into account basic considerations of sample definition), and #9 (i.e., be reliable and valid). What are your thoughts about the value (or lack of value) of using measures of physiological responses, such as the galvanometer? Answer: While this is an open-ended question, students should display knowledge of physiological measures. For example, values are the unobtrusiveness of the measure, and the lack of demand artifacts induced by the measure (i.e., people won’t get sweaty palms to please a researcher). Subjects also may show arousal on the GSR when they don’t actively feel or report being aroused. Negatively, arousal can be either positive or negative, and researchers will have to tease that out from interviewing subjects. Also, the final effects of arousal may not be purchase or an increase in positive feelings for the product. Finally, if the ad stimulus is relatively complex, determining exactly what aspect of the ad the subject is responding to may be difficult. Turn to Table 17.2 and inspect the row in that table having a Share of Choice score range of 7.0 to 8.9. With that particular row in mind, interpret the entries under each of the four columns of share-point differences. For example, what is the specific interpretation of 56 percent under the column headed 1.0+? Answer: 56% of products with ads scoring between 7.0 and 8.9 by their score made approximately a 1 percent share gain due to advertising. Compare and contrast the Ipsos ASI Next*TV® measure with comScore ARS’s Share of Choice method. Answer: They are similar in that each attempts to keep the subject from knowing that they are evaluating ads by embedding the ads in regular programming. Hopefully this will keep them from being too much like advertising “judges” and more like regular viewers. Both attempt sampling to get subjects, but Ipsos ASI Next*TV sends respondents videotapes to view in their homes while Share of Choice exposes respondents to test commercials during test sessions at central locations. The former contacts respondents the next day and measures consumers’ reactions, and the latter collects measures immediately after respondents viewed the test commercial. They are also different in that Ipsos ASI Next*TV uses measures of persuasion and knowledge while Share of Choice uses a behavioral choice measure that enables measuring pre- versus post-ad exposure differences yielding a gain score. The potential consequences to research users of the different dependent measures should be discussed. In the context of the discussion of single-source data, explain the difference between weight tests and copy tests. Illustrate your understanding of the difference between these two types of tests by designing a hypothetical weight test and then a copy test for the same brand. Answer: “Weight” is the number of GRPs or the approximate number of times an audience is exposed to a communication, and copy testing assesses receiver responses to a commercial with a variety of techniques outlined in the chapter. Weight tells little or nothing about an ad’s actual impact. While ads with a lot of “weight” (i.e., several exposures per audience member) may be able to build recognition or recall simply through multiple exposures, the ability to achieve communication objectives beyond these will be a function of how well the ad ties into existing schemas and wants/needs of the target audience. Copy testing has the potential to explore these latter areas. The weight test should involve frequency of exposure manipulation, and the copy test should involve different creative strategies. With reference to Frito-Lay’s copy tests in Table 17.3, the results reveal that of the 23 commercials tested, only 57 percent of the tests generated significant differences in sales between the split panels tested. Assume that Frito-Lay’s results are applicable to television advertising in general. What is your general conclusion from this key finding? Answer: Several potential conclusions can be drawn, all dependent on what the findings actually represent. First, large brands have significantly large market shares, and increases in market share may be very difficult with advertising. This is plausible given the finding that TV advertising was effective with small brands. Second, TV advertising may be helping to maintain market share, rather than increasing market share. Advertising helps maintain retail support, which would be critical with a brand like Frito-Lay that has many competitors. The study did not provide evidence that market share would be maintained if advertising were stopped. The text’s explanations are that advertising is not always effective, and is usually effective only when it provides some newsworthy, distinctive information (a raising involvement or attitude change approach). Offer an explanation as to why, in general, increasing advertising weight is an insufficient means of increasing brand sales. Answer: Merely increasing advertising weight does not directly translate into better performance for a brand. Advertising copy must also be distinctive and persuasive for advertising to have a positive impact on a brand’s sales and market share. The conclusion receives support from a landmark study that analyzed numerous tests based on BehaviorScan single-source data. Explain your understanding of why in the case of mature products with familiar brands greater advertising weight is effective in increasing sales only when affective cues are used in advertising the brand. Answer: It seems that commercials using affectively based cues respond positively to greater advertising weight because this type of commercial evokes positive feelings in consumers; comparatively, commercials containing rational information or heuristic appeals grow tiresome more quickly and may even turn consumers off with repeated showings. In your opinion, why do commercials for familiar brands with strong equities wear out less rapidly than is the case for unfamiliar brands? Answer: Stronger brands can continue to use creative executions for a longer period of time, need to refresh advertising less frequently, and thus obtain a bigger bang for the advertising buck. It appears that familiar brands that possess greater brand equity enjoy increased marcom effectiveness by postponing the onset of advertising wear out. Solution Manual for Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications Craig J. Andrews, Terence A. Shimp 9781111580216, 9788131528242, 9781133191421, 9781337282659