Page 251 - DMGT507_SALES AND PROMOTIONS MANAGEMENT

Unit 14: Measurement of Advertising Effectiveness

Notes
Example: A consumer has heard a carpet cleaning company’s ads for months, but until
the need arises to have his or her carpets cleaned, there is no reason to contact the company.
When that need does arise, however, he or she will already know the name of the company and
feel familiar enough with it to engage its services.
One trap that advertisers sometimes fall into is that of restlessness or boredom with a long-
running campaign. The ownership of a business may feel a need to change a long-running
advertisement simply because of a desire to try a new, more exciting avenue. There are certainly
valid reasons for doing so (stagnant sales, changing competitive dynamics, etc.) at times, but
advertising experts discourage businesses from yanking advertisements that continue to be
effective just for the sake of change. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is the guiding principle behind
this caution. They note that consumers learn to associate businesses with certain advertisements,
design elements, or themes, but that these associations sometimes take time to sink in. Similarly,
industry observers counsel business owners to maintain a level of consistency with the advertising
media they utilize (provided those media are effective, of course).

By choosing an appropriate style and theme, and carefully placing ads in effective media, the
business owner begins to create a lasting foundation for his or her company. Maintaining an
advertising campaign in itself advertises the stability, dependability, and tone of a business. If
customers are finding the ads useful, then the advertising is working; changing the ads could
diminish their effectiveness.

14.2.1 Need for Post Evaluation of Campaigns

All advertisements have the potential to trigger some form of purchasing behaviour.
Effectiveness may have more to do with the readiness of the viewer to consider the benefits the
advertisement promotes, than the advertisement itself. It may be more cost effective to invest in
finding creative ways to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign that is part of an
advertising campaign in itself, but at the end of the day your goals are the key. It may come
down to estimating how happy you are with what you are doing. Marketers should check for
effectiveness of advertising campaigns to:
Avoiding Costly Mistakes: Companies are spending millions of rupees each year on advertising,
but that is not to say that it is being spent wisely. The only way to ensure that this money is not
being wasted on ineffective advertising programs is to continuously evaluate the effectiveness
of the chosen programs and to ensure that these programs are achieving their intended purpose.
Evaluating the effectiveness of the chosen programs is not all about money, it also gives the
marketer the opportunity to analyze the non-tangible effects of the chosen program.

Example: If a company chooses to go with a pop-up advertising program, they can
evaluate it’s ROI by comparing its click-throughs to the amount of money invested in building
it. However that is not the extend of it; a good evaluation program will be able to analyze the
consumer’s reaction to that program, its effects on the company’s image or its effectiveness in
comparison to a banner ad program.
Evaluating Alternative Strategies: Not only is it important to evaluate the effectiveness of the
chosen method, but also the opportunity costs of choosing that method. Often after companies
have chosen a method, they focus their attention exclusively on that method ignoring the
potential profits that would have come about if they went with an ulterior method. A good
evaluation program will be able to analyze the effectiveness and the opportunity costs of the
chosen method.

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