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International Advertising Research
Category: Retail Automotive Fuel Products
Methods: International Research, Advertising Research
Summary
A global, retail automotive fuel products company was interested in testing
its magazine and TV advertising in several countries in an effort to drive improvement
in brand awareness, familiarity, and sales.
Strategic Issues
The client company is known globally to consumers through its three key brands
of automotive fuel products and patented additives. These brands have achieved
very high customer satisfaction and trust ratings in the United States and around
the world. While the company enjoys high satisfaction rankings among consumers
who are aware of and use their brands, the firm tends to lag behind some competitors
in some markets and regions in terms of overall brand and advertising awareness.
This is true for both of their core fuel brands and their premium additives.
Accordingly, the client developed a series of print and broadcast advertisements—aimed
at leveraging its trust image—in an effort to improve awareness and drive
sales. The company was interested in testing the ads and making any necessary
improvements that helped with clarity, brand recall, brand registration, persuasion,
and other key messaging elements.
Marketing Research Objectives
The overall research and business objectives included the following:
- Based on normative and relative measures, determine—of the two U.S.
and two Latin American print ads and the three U.S. and two Latin American
TV ads—which ads should be run, if any.
- For all ads, understand what improvements needed to be made, if any, to
further enhance the client’s brands in the target markets.
Marketing Research Design and Methods
The print and TV ads were in post-production format and were ready to be published,
though changes could be made if needed. Decision Analyst’s monadic CopyTest®
system would be used for this project since it was designed to be used for finished
or near-finished ads. In a monadic approach, each respondent evaluates only
one advertisement and answers questions specific to that ad. Two separate CopyTest®
studies were commissioned for this project:
- Print Ad Study—two print ads were tested in the U.S. among approximately
200 consumers in specific target markets. Two print ads were tested in Latin
America among approximately 200 additional consumers in two countries.
- TV Ads—three TV ads were tested in the U.S. among approximately 300
consumers in specific target markets. Two TV ads were tested in Latin America
among approximately 200 additional consumers in two countries.
Both surveys were conducted online among the representative samples of category
users. After viewing one ad, respondents completed a proprietary sequence of
key metrics and several diagnostic batteries such as persuasion, brand reinforcement,
potential increase in usage, attention value, brand registration, and brand
remembrance.
The results were entered into Decision Analyst’s proprietary SellingPower™
analytical model to calculate overall advertising effectiveness. Based on historical
normative data, internal diagnostics, and analytical models, the results predicted
the effectiveness of each ad and what needed to be changed to improve the advertising.
Results
For the U.S. and Latin American print ads, one ad tended to stand out; however,
both ads fell below category norms in several areas. On average, persuasion
and brand reinforcement scores were very low, as were other brand-related metrics.
Suggestions were made to the client about specific components that could be
improved, based on objective ratings and open-ended comments. In addition, in
Latin America there was a specific wording reference that was causing confusion
(and possibly offending some) due to its many possible interpretations. A few
specific words were changed to reflect a more focused, less ambiguous, and less
confusing message.
The U.S. TV ads tested well against category norms and overall. Any of the
ads would have enhanced the client’s image and position. There was one
ad, though, that was the clear winner across most metrics; it delivered stronger
imagery (both on objective ratings and open-ends) and resonated more with the
target audience. Much like the print ads though, all three had relatively low
persuasion and brand reinforcement scores, which pointed to the need to improve
the “calls to action.” The Latin American TV ads also scored well
against norms, and one ad also stood above the rest. This ad needed only minor
adjustments on the issue of clarity.
Overall, the advertising research gave the client specific suggestions for
improvement. Without these improvements, and particularly the ones related to
persuasion and branding, the client would have spent thousands of dollars on
messaging that would almost certainly have fallen flat among its core targets.
The suggested improvements made the advertising more persuasive, emphasized
the brand names more strongly, and connected the consumer more to the brand.
Copyright © 2011 by Decision Analyst, Inc.
This case study may not be copied, published, or used in any way without written permission of Decision Analyst.
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would like to discuss a possible project, please contact Jerry W. Thomas,
President/CEO, (jthomas@decisionanalyst.com),
or Randy Hill, Vice President, (rhill@decisionanalyst.com),
or call 1-800-ANALYSIS (262-5974) or 1-817-640-6166.
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