REVIEW QUESTIONS
19-4. Why is setting campaign objectives important?
Typically, a brand communication campaign has multiple objectives. It is critical that
the stated objectives be established up front because they provide the all-important
framework for evaluating the success of a campaign. This is true for social media,
also. Although evaluation of brand communication is sometimes informal and based
19-5. Why is campaign measurement becoming more important?
A complete understanding of the impact of an IMC campaign can only be gained
through testing, monitoring and measurement. From the business perspective, formal
evaluation of brand communication is a must because the stakes in making an
19-6.What is single-source research, and how scanner data relate to it?
Using scanner data and the cooperation of local cable networks, researchers are closer to
showing a causal relationship between IMC programs and sales because of single source
The purchasing behavior of each group of householders is collected by scanners in local
stores. Because brand communication is the only manipulated variable, this method
Although fairly expensive, single-source research can produce dependable results.
19-7. What is media optimization and how do we evaluate how close we are to
achieving it?
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One of the biggest challenges in media planning is media efficiency – that is, getting the
most out of your money invested. The goal of media optimization is to optimize the
Media planners operate with computer models of media optimization that are used in
making decisions about media selection, scheduling, and weights. Because models are
always theoretical, actual performance of a media plan must be compared with the results
projected by model. For major campaigns, agencies do post-buy analyses, which involve
19-8. Why is an IMC campaign difficult to evaluate?
An IMC campaign employs various brand communication, such as advertising, sales
promotion, public relations, direct marketing, digital, etc. Each of these tools has its
own metrics by which performance is measured, and some are much more precise
For this reason, the major challenge in overall IMC program evaluation is to pull
everything together and look at the big picture of campaign performance. As
companies move from solely an evaluation mind-set that considers measures such as
19-9. What are some unique challenges connected with the evaluation of digital
marketing communication efforts?
There are several challenges marketers face when attempting to capture the success of
digital marketing communication efforts. First, marketers often want to skip straight
to digital measurement without having a clear sense of their business objectives.
Second, marketers must develop the right digitalkey performance indicators, which
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
19-10. Most clients want a quick and easy answer to the question of whether an IMC
campaign works. Advertising professionals, however, tend to believe that sales-only
approach to evaluation is not appropriate. Why do they feel that way? If you were helping
an agency prepare for a presentation on its campaign results, what would you suggest the
agency say to explain away the idea that you can evaluate a campaign on a single
measure?
This client needs to be reminded that the intention of brand communications is to
accomplish a variety of goals. While marketers are certainly pleased when advertising
contributes to sales increases, an immediate increase in sales is never the singular
objective to be pursued. For example, the goal of a nonprofit may be to make donors
19-11. You are hiring a research consulting company to help a client evaluate the
effectiveness of its communication efforts. One of the consultants recommends using
focus groups to evaluate their effectiveness. Another consultant suggests that focus
groups aren’t very effective for campaign evaluation and recommends other measures.
Which viewpoint do you believe is most insightful? For campaign evaluation purposes,
is qualitative or quantitative research used most often?
Tracking studies are one of the most commonly used research techniques in the
evaluation of brand communication efforts. Other research techniques used include
19-12. Explore the websites of two IMC evaluation companies, such as Ameritest
(www.Ameritest.net), Ipsos ASI (www.ipsos.com), Millward Brown
(www.millwardbrown.com) or Sapient (www.sapient.com), and compare the services
they offer. If you were looking for a company to evaluate a campaign for recall, which
one would you prefer? Why? What about if you were looking for a company to evaluate a
campaign for digital impact? Why?
While student responses will vary depending upon which two of these four companies
they decide to compare, their responses should reflect the differences in types of
measurement toolseach organization provide. For example, Amertest and Ipsos offer
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TAKE-HOME PROJECTS
19-13. Portfolio Project: Put together a portfolio of 10 ads for a set of product categories
targeted to a college audience. Set up a focus group with participants recruited from
among your friends and ask them to look at the ads. In a test of unaided awareness, ask
them to list the ads they remember. Identify the top performing ad and the bottom ad in
this awareness test. Now ask the focus group participants to analyze the headline, the
visual, and the brand identification of each ad. How do the two ads compare in terms of
their ability to get attention and lock the brand in memory?
19-14. Mini-Case Analysis: Reread the chapter opening story about LiveWell. Explain
what is meant when we say the point of this campaign is to build a brand relationship.
How did this campaign succeed in that objective? How was effectiveness determined? If
you were on the marketing team and were asked to develop a broader set of evaluation
tools, what would you recommend and why?
This campaign not only built strong brand awareness, but was also successful in
spreading knowledge and changing attitudes. This could have only happened as the
result of a strong brand relationship. We know the campaign was effective because it
attracted more than 100,000 visitors to the LiveWell website, a 540% increase compared
TRACE North American Case
Evaluating Campaign Effectiveness
Read the TRACEcase in the Appendix before coming to class.
19-15. If you worked for TRACE, how would you pretest this campaign prior to
using it across the country?
19-16.What methods would you use to conduct concurrent and post-testing of the
campaign?
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19-17.If you worked for TRACE, how would you evaluate the market success of the
“Hard to Explain, Easy to Experience” campaign from year to year?
Hands-On Case
The Company You Keep
P5-1.What advice would you give to a client who wanted to hire a celebrity
spokesperson?
The use of celebrities as spokespersons, endorsers or brand symbols is a frequently used
strategy in the field of advertising. The idea is to associate the brand with a famous
However, this strategy must be employed carefully because if a celebrity spokesperson
behaves badly, they can do great harm to the brand. Clearly the client has an investment
P5-2. What effect can spokespeople have on brands their relationship to consumers? Is
any publicity good publicity?
In the best of situations, a celebrity spokesperson can immensely strengthen the
relationship between brands and their consumers by increasing brand credibility, brand
liking, and serving as a persuasive element. In the worst of situations, however, a
Some students will take the point of view that ‘all publicity is good publicity’, meaning
that any amount of free media exposure is a good thing regardless of its content.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
WEB REVIEW QUESTIONS
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1. What are the different types of memory tests and how are they used?
Memory tests are one of several types of evaluation techniques that can be used to
measure the impact of brand communication. One way to measure memory is to
show a magazine advertisement, for example, to people and ask them whether they
remember having seen it before. This kind of test is called a recognition test. In a
Similarly, a TV commercial is run on network television within a regular prime-time
program. The next evening, interviewers make thousands of random phone calls until
they have contacted about 200 people who were watching the program at the exact
2. How is the impact of public relations typically tracked? What are the challenges
associated with evaluating this specific brand communication tool?
Public relations typically track the impact of a public relations campaign in terms of
successful output e.g., how many news release led to stories or mentions in news
The search for methods to tie public relations activities to bottom line business
measures, such as return on investment (ROI) is like the quest for the Holy Grail. A
surrogate ROI measure can be based on shareholder value, which can be seen as a
3. Describe the financial analyses that can be used to determine the efficiency of a
sales promotion.
The efficiency of a sales promotion can be evaluated in terms of its financial returns more
easily than can the impact of advertising. We compare the costs of the promotion, called a
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4. How can digital IMC components be evaluated?
Many IMC efforts are conducted online. Some performance indicators are website
traffic volume, such as page views or the simple number of visitors to a site. Banner
advertising and other online ads are evaluated using click-through rates. One thing the
Instead of click-through rates, some advertising uses a cost-per-lead metric that
records how well the click-through generates prospects, an attempt to get at ROI. A
5. Discuss the new techniques that have been developed to accurately measure the
impact of out-of-home media.
Accurately measuring the mobile audience for outdoor advertising is challenging.
Although traffic counts can be gathered, the problem is that traffic does not equal
To address this issue, Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement, Inc., has created
the TAB visibility research program, which uses eye-tracking technology to
6. What are the unique challenges of evaluating the impact of an IMC campaign?
A challenge that is specific to the evaluation of IMC campaigns is the estimation of
the impact of synergy. Intuitively we know that multichannel communication with
messages that reinforce and build on one another will have more impact than single
messages from single sources; however, that can be difficult to prove. If the campaign
A number of studies have attempted to evaluate IMC impact by comparing campaigns
that use two or three tools to see what is gained when more message sources are
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A final complication in evaluating programs is the need to consider other messages
and contact points beyond the brand campaign. Brand experiences such as those
7. What are some of the unique challenges associated with evaluating the impact of
international brand communication?
International brand communication is difficult to evaluate because of market differences (e.g.,
language, laws, and cultural norms) and the acceptability of various research tools. There may also be
incompatibilities among various measurement systems and data analysis techniques that make it
difficult to compare the data from one market with similar data from another market. An international
After a campaign has concluded, international evaluation remains critical yet difficult. It can be
complicated by the fact that different countries may have had very different starting points
(pre-campaign measurements) with regard to brand awareness and affinity. Also in different countries,
ASSIGNMENTS
Individual Assignments
1. Record three television commercials for products or services of your choice. Then
gather five of your friends together to form a focus group. After they view each
commercial, have group members evaluate each one on:
a. Attention. How did the ad grab your attention?
b. Engagement. Did this ad engage you? If so, how?
c. Memory. Which key points can you remember five minutes later? Sixty minutes?
d. Emotion. How did this ad make you feel?
Once you have interviewed all participants, summarize your major findings in a
500-word report.
2. Locate five IMC samples for a product or service of your choice, and evaluate their
effectiveness as part of an overall campaign. Your samples will vary, but they could
include:
Print advertisement
TV or digital advertisement
Product packaging
Public Relations /publicity in the media
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Consumer promotions and/or point-of-purchase displays
Prepare a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation for the class to highlight your findings.
Pass the samples around as you speak, and tell the class whether you think the pieces
were successful individually and as a whole. Did they create “synergy”? If so, how?
As a brand communicator, how would you evaluate this campaign?
Think-Pair-Share
1. In small groups, conduct some very informal market research that focuses upon the
overall effectiveness of television advertisements. On youtube.com find five
relatively current 30 or 60 second television ads for five different consumer packaged
goods products. Then construct a survey instrument by selecting one question from
each of Table 19.1’s categories. Next, identify a group of eight to ten survey
participants and instruct each to watch each of your youtube.com ads only once. The
following day, contact each survey participant and administer your survey, which
should be structured in a way that allows you to determine which ads they remember
and the extent to which they recall the ad’s content. As a group, tabulate your data
and report your findings to the class.
2. Social Media Explorer LLC , along with its founder, is mentioned in this chapter.
Visit this company’s website at www.socialmediaexplorer.com. Scroll downward to
the website’s listing of articles by category and select at least two articles each from
the categories of Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring. With a
classmate, identify the key points made in each article and discuss how they support
or conflict with concepts discussed in Chapter 19 regarding the evaluation of social
media’s impact on business.
OUTSIDE EXAMPLES
1. Read “Why Metrics Are Killing Creativity in Advertising,” a commentary posted
on www.adage.com on March 4, 2010. Outline the premises upon which
thewriter’s point of view is predicated.With which of his arguments do you agree
and with which do you disagree? In what ways does this writer’s commentary
align and/or conflict with the perspective conveyed in Chapter 19? Discuss these
issues with your classmates during an informal presentation.
2. Watch “Life Lessons from an Ad Man,” and “Sweat the Small Stuff,” two online
videos featuring Rory Sutherland, who was mentioned at the very end of this
chapter. You can find the videos by going to www.ted.com and typing his name
into the search box.
Make a list of the life lessons that Mr. Sutherland is attempting to convey, and
then compare that list to the IMC principles in your textbook. As you do so,
consider the following questions: (a) Where do the two lists converge and
diverge? Pinpoint and discuss the similarities. (b) What are the fundamental
principles regarding human behavior, economics, and the practice of marketing
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that Mr. Sutherland cautions us not to lose sight of? Why do you think it is so
easy for marketing and advertising professionals to stray from them? (c) How
could adherence to Mr. Sutherland’s lessons help a young professional advance
their marketing or advertising career?
Discuss these issues with your classmates during an informal presentation.
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