THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVENESS

Over the past few months we’ve seen an increasing amount of our research work focusing on the effect of different types of campaigns and marketing activity. So much so in fact that we’re starting to see this area as a distinct part of our offering (but more on that in due course).

One thing that has been particularly interesting, though, is seeing how much effectiveness research is seen as simply being a sense check of past campaigns, rather than being a tool with which to get closer to consumers. Given the options available to measure across media, to cookie respondents and to explore motivations, we feel that effectiveness is often an under-researched, purely retrospective area.

For example, if we go to the trouble of tracking a shift in unprompted recall across a population which we can attribute to a single piece of activity, surely it then makes sense to explore what it was about the activity that resonated with the audience? So often though we have seen effectiveness research presentations which just present data, without offering insights.

It’s great to have the data there, showing you that the choice of media worked, but it’s only half the picture. Despite the new, audience driven world we operate in, advertising is still essentially disruptive; it draws some of the consumer’s attention away from where it was and redirects it at the brand. If the brand wants to keep hold of this attention, their activity needs to stay interesting, which it does by evolving. Simply repeating activity, because the numbers tell us it works – does not constitute evolution. That’s why effectiveness research should also offer insights – it needs to tell you what to do next.