Chapter 15

Measuring the Effectiveness

of Brand Promotions

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1. Discuss issues that shape the evaluation of

brand promotion.

2. Describe how marketers measure the

effectiveness of advertising.

3. Identify measures of effectiveness for Internet

advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion,

point-of-purchase, sponsorships, public relations,

and corporate advertising.

4. Explain how sales managers evaluate

salespeople and the personal-selling effort.

5. Describe the process of evaluating the

effectiveness of IMC campaigns.

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Issues in Measuring Effectiveness

• First among the issues to consider when exploring the measurement of

promotion’s effectiveness is the scope of promotion research.

• Marketers must determine whether research meets the criteria of:

• reliability

• validity

• trustworthiness

• meaningfulness

• Research that is based on custom and history should be avoided.

• Account planning is a system used to analyze the research data for projects. It

differs from traditional promotion research in three ways:

• organization

• prominent role of research

• tendency towards qualitative and naturalistic research

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Issues in Measuring Effectiveness, Continued

• Message evaluation is an attempt to gain some assurance that the

promotional message is doing essentially what it is supposed to do.

• Clients often want normative test scores, however this isn’t always the most

appropriate or effective way to evaluate a message. Often qualitative

(rather than quantitative) information is better suited to the task.

• Marketers must develop criteria to evaluate the research’s usefulness.

These criteria assess whether the message:

• imparts knowledge

• shapes attitudes

• attaches emotions

• legitimizes the brand (resonance testing)

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Effectiveness of Advertisements

• The methods for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising generally take the form

of pretesting, pilot testing, and post-testing.

• Pretest evaluations are instituted before advertisements are placed and include:

• Communication tests

• Magazine dummies

• Theater tests

• Thought listings

• Attitude change studies

• Physiological measures (eye-tracking systems, psychogalvanometer, brain

wave tracking, voice response analysis)

• Pretest advantages include providing data before a campaign begins so

adjustments can be made and saving companies from running ineffective or

embarrassing ads. Disadvantages include feedback that fails to separate

responses to the ad from responses to the brand and feedback that tells only how

stimulating an ad is.

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Effectiveness of Advertisements, Continued

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Effectiveness of Advertisements, Continued

• Pilot tests are instituted in the field and include:

• Split-cable transmission

• Split-run transmission

• Split-list experiments

• The advantage of pilot testing is the natural environment in which

the testing takes place. A disadvantage is that the environment

cannot be controlled and competing influences may distract

subjects.

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Effectiveness of Advertisements, Continued

• Post-testing assesses performance during or after the launch of an

advertising campaign. Techniques include:

• Recall testing

• Recognition testing

• Awareness and attitude tracking

• Behavior-based measures

• Advantages include the real-world setting. Disadvantages include

expense, delay of feedback, and inability to separate souces.

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Identifying Measures of

Effectiveness

• Internet advertising—hits, click-throughs, page views, visits, unique

visitors

• Web measurement tools—log analysis software

• Direct marketing—inquiry/response measures

• Sales promotions and point-of-purchase—Consumer sales: ballot

method, sales measures. Trade Sales: surveys, sales measures

• Sponsorship and supportive communications—probably shouldn’t be

measured at all, may be measured through event attendance or number

of views if televised

• PR and corporate advertising—probably shouldn’t be measured, may be

measured through media counts and changes in awareness

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Identifying Measures of Effectiveness, Continued

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Exhibit 15.1 Measures for Post-Testing Sales Promotion

Effectiveness of Personal Selling

• These measurements include both objective and subjective criteria.

• Results must be carefully viewed within the context of the overall sales

picture and consider both long- and short-term effects.

• Measuring the effectiveness of sales personnel is important for several

reasons:

• salespeople need feedback so they can adjust future efforts

• management needs a basis on which to make annual salary and

bonus decisions

• provides a primary source for internal situation analysis

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Effectiveness of Personal Selling, Continued

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Exhibit 15.2 Performance Criteria for Salespeople

Effectiveness of the IMC Program

• One approach to measuring the effectiveness of the overall IMC

program is to measure each of the promotional tools used in a campaign

as if it were independent of the others. This fragmented approach fails to

account for the synergies that are the hallmark of IMC campaigns.

• A second approach is to use single-source tracking measures, which

identify the extent to which a sample of consumers has potentially been

exposed to multiple promotional messages.

• A third alternative proposed by practitioners suggests measuring media

exposures, product (brand) impressions, and personal contacts as a

basis for determining the overall effect of an IMC program.

• Measuring the interaction of all elements of the promotional mix

elements is extremely complicated and likely beyond the methodological

tools available at this time.

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