Literature Review - 2

Communications Imperatives for New Products
Journal of Advertising Research, Kirby Andrews

This article throws some light on the standing issue of what is the best advertising for new products. The author describes a research study done in conjunction with clients of his research / consulting firm.

19 firms had cooperated in the study, and offered a total of 50 new products that had been marketed in some 10 major product categories. For each product there was a commercial that had been deemed sales-successful or not (27 were, 23 were not). Most products were parity products, and only 14 were genuinely different.

Each commercial was analyzed for content: the analysts sought 2,121 criteria, using computer programming, for each segment of each commercial that had separate meaning. This long list was worked down to 84 criteria that seemed to be important. They differentiated the ads. All 50 commercials were then analyzed against these 84 factors, and scored. Lastly, the advertisers then supplied the success label for each commercial, and further analysis yielded the final data.

It was found that there's a direct relationship between the structure and content of an introductory commercial for a new product and its ability to stimulate trial (the prime measure of success for new product advertising). 9 communication imperatives were found, and 85% of the successful commercials incorporated all 9 of them. Only 13% of unsuccessful commercials did so.

Of the 9 imperatives, 5 are basic advertising communications objectives and involve:

1. Capturing attention
2. Building interest
3. Communicating clearly
4. Creating awareness
5. Meeting advertiser strategy

The other 4, called introductory factors hold more interest. A new product advertisement should:

1. Communicate that something is different about the product
2. Position the brand difference in relation to the product category. What type of product is this?
3. Communicate that the product difference is beneficial to consumers.
4. Support the above two claims: difference and beneficial. The support may be product demonstration, testimonial, guarantee etc.,

The study also points out the surprising number of commercials from the large firms involved that did not meet the 5 basic objectives and did not offer the 4 introductory factors.

The study, though, did not go on to speculate whether these findings would apply to non-television goods and services.

Why don't you replicate this study in the Indian context using Indian products and advertising? Would be useful to the marketing and advertising fraternity, to say the least.

Literature Review - 1

The Characteristics of high-trial new product advertising.

Journal of Advertising Research, David Olson

This journal article deals with determining what constitutes good new product advertising. It describes a study done at Leo Burnett Co., a large advertising agency.

First, researchers went back through agency files and found 65 commercials that they could say achieved high trial, average trial, or low trial. Second, they had consumers view each commercial and rate whether 52 statements applied to it. Further analysis sorted these 52 statements to 7 basic dimensions of advertising:

1. News: how informative was the ad?
2. Relevance: how personally meaningful?
3. Purchase Interest
4. Stimulation: how entertaining or interesting was the ad?
5. Empathy: how involving was the ad?
6. Confusion
7. Familiarity: how much just like other ads?

The high trial commercials scored better than the medium and low-trial commercials across all seven factors. Still further analysis of the data determined that using just two of those seven factors permitted 66% success in predicting trial for the new product. Adding the other five only pushed this up to 75%.

The first of the two very strong factors was Relevance. Relevance is measured by five of the original 52 statements.

1. The commercial showed me the product has certain advantages
2. The product is important to me
3. The commercial reminded me that I am dissatisfied
4. During the commercial I thought about how the product can be useful to me
5. The commercial made me feel the product is right for me

Naturally, if the product is poor those five statements will be hard to get yes answers on. Good advertising is not usually thought capable of selling poor products. But, given good product concepts, the advertising should say so. If it does, the five statements are agreed to, and the relevance score goes up.

The second major factor was Stimulation. Its presence is measured by answers to the following six of the original 52 statements:

1. The persons in the commercial captured my attention
2. The enthusiasm of the commercial was catching
3. The commercial was amusing
4. The commercial was playful
5. The commercial was fun to watch and listen to
6. I thought it was clever and quite entertaining

The chances of obtaining high trial are only about 10% if the commercial is below average on both relevance and stimulation. It is 25 – 30% if the commercial is above average on one or the other factor. It is 50% if above average o both factors.

In a second qualitative phase of the agency’s study, analysis was undertaken to study how creative people view these two factors, and how they may interrelate in a given ad. A search of the agency’s archives yielded ten products where there were two different commercials with different relevance scores. The commercials were shown to creative staffers in the agency and each person was asked to identify the commercial that had the higher relevance. In most cases they were able to do so (without using consumers or the five of the fifty two original statements to guide them).

The author cautions that the above analysis should not be taken to mean that advertising could be written by formula. How one creates relevance is still an art, but it appears an ad should have lots of relevance (and stimulation too), and their presence can be measured.

Indian Readership Survey: An Introduction

All of your have heard about it; most of you have read about it; a few know about it. And for the remaining who wishes to know more about it, here is a brief introduction to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS).

IRS is essentially a readership measurement study. The prime objective of the study is to collect readership information from a cross-section of individuals, in great detail, so as to present a true and unbiased picture of their readership habits. On the media front, it also captures information on television and cinema viewership, radio listnership and internet usage. In addition to this, IRS also captures information on various FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) products’ usage and consumption and durable ownership amongst households and individuals. Since media and product ownership / consumption information is captured from the same household, it enables linkages between the media and product data.

Fieldwork

IRS fieldwork, which lasts for a year, is continuous in nature. It is broken up into two rounds with a balanced sample. In a typical year, the first round’s field work starts from July to December followed by the second round in January to June. Data is reported on a moving annual total i.e., the average of two consecutive rounds.

Scope – All India

IRS 2005 (Round 1 + 2) has a sample size of 235,428 covering 1,318 towns and 3,084 villages.

The entire sample is spread equally between the two rounds. Individual reporting is done for 70+ cities that includes all one million population towns (35) and a few other cities of strategic importance to our users.

Key Findings

North has the highest concentration of SEC A households (13.3%). South is the lowest(7.7%).

Not surprisingly, North has the highest number of illiterate housewives (59.6%), and South has the least (40%).

West has the highest concentration of working housewives (48.5%) and North the least (21.6%). Maybe this explains why most North Indian housewives are obese!

For those who are still ignorant about the way India lives here are some penetration figures. No, not the number of times Indians have sex damn it! These are penetration figures among households, rather!
TV: 40 +%
Pressure cooker: 31 - 40%
Refrigerator: 11 – 20%
Motorbike and CD player: 6 – 10%
Automobile and Personal computers: 1 – 2%
A/C, Vacuum cleaner, Microwave, Digital Camera: < 1%

The top 10 channels both in terms of reach as well as viewers base are South-based. In fact only 25% of the top 20 vernacular channels are non-South.

The MNC’s are trying hard to lure the Indian consumer, but it is still the age-old Indian brand of refrigerator – Godrej that has acquired its space in maximum number of households in the country, be it urban or rural across the zones.

Source: Hansa Research and MRUC booklet. www.hansaresearch.com / www.mruc.net