Marketing communication: principles and practice

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BOX 16.3
NIELSEN’S PEOPLE METER
As a more accurate viewer-sampling technology than the Audimeter it replaced, this
has shown that far fewer people are watching television than was previously believed
by TV executives.

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Of course, it is the consumer/buyer who has the real power to determine what
is ‘successful’ advertising. Effective advertisements are those that are liked,
that is, they are judged to be meaningful, pertinent, believable, and
worthwhile – not merely entertaining. Brand advertising mobilizes the
symbolic, rather than the literal. Increasingly brand properties are linked with
lifestyle – motivations, needs, attitudes.
Measures of the impact of advertising include: brand name recognition,
brand recall, attitude to provider. Attempts are also being made to apply
psychological testing to gauge net positive cognitive responses. A range of
techniques are used to study the effects of advertising (East, 1997). Some
techniques are summarized in Figure 16.10.
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BOX 16.4
GAUGING THE INTERNET
With the advent of Internet advertising, many marketers are wondering if advertisement
impression remains the most appropriate measure of effectiveness. Some, like the
interactive team at Proctor & Gamble, are rethinking what constitutes ‘effective’, and
then how to pay for it. Options include: cost-per-thousand impressions, sponsorships,
performance-based payment, and hybrids of these.
Because the Internet is essentially an interactive addressable medium, advertising
impressions are no longer the sole (and rather abstract) means of measuring
performance. Click-throughs, customer leads generated, and sales made are more
tangible indicators of performance.