Creative testing hits and misses

Creative testing in 2011 still relies too heavily on conscious and direct measures of recall and buying intention. Research indicates that emotional reactions are linked to ad memorability and that they can explain behaviour and purchase intention better than cognitive factors, yet emotion measurement in the context of advertising testing is still difficult to achieve.  Most methods currently in use in ad testing are self-report methods and they have many limitations: showing someone an ad and then asking them how they felt about it skews results as people will be forced to put their emotions into words, even if they are unclear as to what they felt.

Moreover, these tools only measure people’s perception of an emotion, not necessarily the actual emotion they are experiencing. Tools that feature a range of images of various expressive faces and ask consumers to pick the one that best matches their emotional state after seeing an ad are a better method in that they avoid influencing the consumer using a set of given words, yet the measurement will necessarily be conducted ex-post as it would be too time-consuming to do while viewing the ad.

As to real-time ad testing methods, some of their drawbacks lie in the very nature of advertising: for example, a TV ad has to convey what a brand stands for in just 30 seconds – no mean feat for a research company wanting to detect any instant changes in consumers’ emotional states while they are watching an ad. The problem is that within such a short timeframe consumers may not be able to realise if they are bored, or elated, by an ad, and even if they do they may not be quick enough to press the button on their handheld device to signal it. The delay that exists between the moment we experience something and the moment we consciously realise it makes it also difficult to pinpoint the exact frame or ad feature that is stirring such a reaction in us.

Market research needs ad testing instruments that are sensitive enough to capture these small changes. Tools and techniques adapted from neuroscience can provide some help by recording the spontaneous, physical signs of emotion just as they are happening, but these are still underused and some verbalisation is still required from consumers to find out exactly what a particular physical reaction means. Another issue is the context of where the advertising is displayed – be it driving past an outdoor poster, watching TV in the privacy of a living room or seeing online advertising whilst browsing. It is in this context where perceptions about adverts will be formed, and this is where market research should ideally reach people. The more natural the context is, the better, but there are still demographical and technical issues to resolve before this becomes standard.

Moreover, consumers may turn to a brand for fulfilment of their guiding life values and principles so it is important to identify a link between these personal values and consumers’ emotional reaction to the ad to determine whether they will be motivated to action or simply dismiss the ad. So far there are no “magic”, all-purpose creative testing tools out there that address all these issues while at the same time producing clear and actionable outputs for brands. The challenge awaiting advertising testing now is finding a creative testing tool that moves on from direct questioning and incorporates all these aspects to help brands to establish whether their advertising will have the right type of emotional impact on viewers and ultimately lead them to purchase.