Are you a good citizen? Do you prefer Hansa to Castle? Market research reveals it all to the advertising industry, reports David le Page
How do marketers and advertisers decide whether their bombardment of messages, subliminal or otherwise, is sinking into our collective consciousness with sufficient force to make their efforts worthwhile and cost-effective?
Well, they ask us. It’s called market research.
They shepherd us into little boardrooms in advertising agencies, where we answer a host of questions about our most profound experience with a washing powder.
Then they snigger behind their one-way mirrors as one of our number reveals the level of corruption in the South African population, by covertly shovelling sandwiches into their handbag during the tea break.
Such are the moments that make market research bearable for its practitioners.
South African Breweries (SAB) is one of the country’s biggest marketers. For SAB, it’s not enough to find out whether people like one of its products. SAB wants to know how those products are perceived. Is Amstel seen as a slow-brewed, high-quality drink for trout fishermen and chief executives? Is Castle what people drink while pounding the living room sofa and yelling during the Currie Cup?
It’s all about creating a favourable impression of the product over a period of time, rather than simply trying to push up sales. A low-price special offer on any product may push up sales briefly, but knock the image of the brand. Marketers know that sometimes a hefty price tag can even make a product seem more desirable.
To determine such behaviour, whether marketplace perceptions match marketing strategy, SAB continuously tracks the perceptions of 12 000 people, who combine to drive an extremely scientific source of information on the effectiveness of messages. It’s a task only made possible by the application of considerable computer power, without which the amount of data would simply be overwhelming.
Television research is the most scientific. The effectiveness of a particular advert is measured in audience responses (ARs), which are the product of the proportion of the audience reached multiplied by the number of times the ad is seen. If, for example, 50% of the audience sees the Hansa “Beer Tasting” advert five times, then the ARs are 250. Anything above 200 is considered respectable, says Ian Penhale, SAB’s market development manager.
During the launch of a new product, ARs of 600 might be considered necessary. That would amount to 60% of the target audience seeing the advert 10 times.
But SAB also asks its test subjects what advertising they have noticed for various products, in an effort to establish whether radio, TV or outdoor advertising has had the most impact, and whether media planners have been successful. Media planners are specialists who work out schemes for matching an advertiser’s budget with their tarket marget.
Standard Bank, another major advertiser, has its own market research department. A bank is at a great advantage in finding out about its market – it has an unusual amount of information about its customers. Probably more than most of us would like.
But the bank is not just interested in whether the public believes Standard Bank offers the lowest interest rates on the most flexible home loans. In the new South Africa, it is also important that the bank be perceived to be a good corporate citizen.
According to Esmond Wyatt, assistant general manager for advertising and design, the bank’s rating by Corporate Social Investment, a regular survey of public perception of major companies, is taken very seriously.
The kinds of activities that influence these kinds of perceptions include social investment, sporting, social and cultural sponsorships, such as the national arts festival in Grahamstown, which has been sponsored by Standard Bank for 17 years.
A recent Standard Bank campaign deemed exceptionally successful, and one for which it was easy to measure response, was that for its Accessline service, which offers information for home buyers on specific areas. In that case, measuring the response was easy – lots of people phoned in and used the service.
Measuring advertising effectiveness by direct response is a familiar concept to the marketers for Nandos. The spicy chicken chain has spread its wings over 15 countries, and promotions are important when its presence amounts to only one or two stores, according to Josi Mackenzie, Nandos’s international marketing manager.
Even a hard-core retailer like Nandos believes firmly in “brand building” – advertising intended to build a certain set of values around a particular brand in the long term. Mackenzie says that of the 5% of sales spent on advertising, only about 40% is spent on promotions.
Determining the value of advertising certainly becomes easier as the business in question gets larger. Small companies simply cannot afford the kind of scientific approach available to SAB. For them, advertising is more hit and miss.
Two years ago, a small computer networking company looking for business in Johannesburg ran a series of radio spots on 702. They were incredibly simple – short scripts read out live by the talk hosts. They cost the networking business R20 000, amounting to quite a gamble for a business employing fewer than 10 people.
Fortunately, the jump in business was noticeable, and more than justified the investment.