How to Advertise Research
In order to be effective in advertising a firm must find a way to gain some insight into the customers they are trying to engage in their advertising. This can be done in a number of ways, but to achieve the best outcome the firm must determine the most effective way.
Advertisers can acquire information about their target market in a number of ways, including surveys, secret shoppers, focus groups, as well as physiological testing. These are just a few of the ways advertising can find out how to attract their audience and are also the most popular. With all the different types of research it is easy to see that firms need to decide which type or types of research will be most effective for a particular product being advertised.
The Knowledge Base says that a survey is, “one of the most important areas in applied social research,” which is because researchers get accurate answers to the questions that they need to be successful. In the early days of market research the most logical thing for research firms to do was to survey a large group of people to get opinions on the products. This normally consisted of having people fill out questions on pieces of paper which would then have to be individual read and examined to come to the best conclusion for the product. As the years rolled on this became time consuming and costly.
Today many companies offer surveys online and in exchange for going to the website participants would receive a coupon off their next purchase or be entered in some kind of drawing to win prizes. These incentives that were added to the survey research method helped to make the results reached more accurate because people would choose to do the survey instead of feeling like they had to do it.
This new way of only surveying people who used the product also helped to improve the survey’s results. Most surveys consist of multiple choice questions instead of short answers so the company can quickly see what answers were readily picked and draw their conclusions in a much more organized manner. The online surveys also brought in only the target market to answer the questions because only the people who use that product or service would respond to the survey as opposed to a group of random people who could or could not use the product.
In the case of researching how to improve a service or business as a whole many firms use secret shoppers. Service providers like internet and cable companies, restaurants, and retail stores use this method to evaluate their customer service. Since customer service is the key to any service based company they need unbiased opinions on the experience customers have when they use that company. Secret shoppers are people who are hired by the company to use the services provided and give their honest opinion on how the company performed and what can be done to improve. This works really well to provide information on customer service since it is not something that can be counted like a product can.
Focus groups and psychological testing have become very popular and cost effective over recent years. Today most of these groups and tests are coupled together to help a firm fully understand their target market. This kind of research normally consists of talking to people and seeing how they feel about using a product. Psychological test are also done to get to the core of the people that are using the product. By studying how consumer react to certain action and even to words advertisers can make their ads as affect as possible. Kurt Mortensen, author of “How to Use Word Choice in Marketing” says that choosing the right words is critical to any advertising and marketing strategy. Mortensen says that, “[Advertisers] word choices psychologically lead you to believe that their product is the best,” which means that they need to do their research to make sure every word gives the meaning the firm wants them to.
By using all these methods to research how to make an advertisement great sometimes you have to wonder what some advertising agencies thought when they made their campaigns. I happen to think that the reason some ads fail is because they do not do the proper research and just assume their ad will work. This is where companies go wrong. When firms do not take the proper action to research how their ad will be seen in the public’s eye they run the risk of wasting their money and even being seen in a bad way by consumers.
VIDEO: "CK "banned" Ad." YouTube. Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVk21Pco-c>.
Business Pundit cites many failed attempts at trying to advertise products without proper research. Calvin Klein, which is famous for is sexually filled ads, had a campaign in the 1990’s featuring ads of young teenagers in the basement almost naked besides their jeans and appeared to be filmed using a hidden camera. Behind the camera comes a man's voice that compliments the youth in what is mostly seen in a perverse way. Because proper research was not done many people with teenagers and suburban homes became furious. The commercials were so bad that the FBI investigated to see if there was any foul play in the making of these advertisements. I think that Calvin Klein was attempting to communicate that the jeans they sell look good on anyone, but what it came out as in the campaign commercials was a sex offender's at home movie collection.
When it comes to advertising research, it has to be done. Businesses that rely on their instincts and not the research will surely fail. With all the different types of research methods there is no excuse not to do it. You would not buy a car without researching the best option and advertisers should not produce a campaign until they do the same.
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References
Mortensen, Kurt. "How to Use Word Choice in Marketing." Ezine Articles. 6 Mar. 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Use-Word-Choice-in-Marketing&id=288268>.
Ryan. "9 Poorly Conceived Marketing Campaigns | Business Pundit." Business Pundit: Your Daily Dose of Smart Business Opinion. 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://www.businesspundit.com/9-poorly-conceived-marketing-campaigns/>.
"Survey Research." Social Research Methods. Research Methods Knowledge Base, 20 Oct. 2006. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/survey.php>.
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