What is Advertising Research?
As it has been known to all this advertising research falls under the gamut of marketing communication as paid form and sponsored ideas intrigues with this.
The moment we say that it falls under marketing communication, the potentials for knowing the market and its underlying category (customer/consumer/clients/audience); all is needed is research. The best meaning can be got through is ‘Research’; which helps the need of the consumer as well as to get the pulse of the competitors in and around.
There are few synonymous for this term such as Market research, marketing research, Brand Communication research.
Background and History of Advertising Research- The history of advertising research states us moderately a jiffy about its contemporary position. Although approximately advertising agencies have had research departments from the beginning, the actual affluent days came between the 1930s and the 1970s.
During this period, advertising agencies espoused research departments for two basic Reasons:
(1) The propagation of advertising research in the culture during this period suggested its necessity, and
(2) Other advertising agencies had research departments.
Various dimensions of Advertising Research-
Types of Advertising Research
Advertising research should be intended to tell you how operative your advertising plan is at reaching and coaxing customers.
This research is beneficial no matter what form of advertising you use, including print, television, radio, and digital. Advertising research can focus on different areas of the advertising process, including:
Target Market
It is all about doing research to know the habits and preferences of your target customers to ensure the advertising campaign. This eventually helps to identify and know who customers are, what difficulties they have, what assistances they are look for, and what type of messaging will reverberate with them.
Researching your target market can be cooperative if:
- To attract new customers.
- To retain potential consumers.
- You are escalating your business market.
- Your advertising is not reverberating with your set target market.
Another important aspects of advertising research is ‘Brands’ which are not defined just by their products or services. A brand is made up of much more; it has its own personality (contributed to by its employees), its own mission statement, its own goals, its own ethos, even its own humour (see Innocent drinks for an example). However, a brand’s perception is not owned by the brand itself, rather it is owned by the customer, based on how they see and feel it.
Response to Ads
Understanding how tangible customer/consumer in your aim demographic respond to ads can help you create a strong and effective advertising campaign. In this type of research, customers are shown different ads and are asked what they think about the products that are featured, whether they would consider purchasing them, and how well they understand the product after seeing the ad.
Outcomes and Success
Generally, research is done to measure the success of each advertising campaign. Understanding the effect advertising has on sales, customer perception, and lead generation, along with reoccurrence on venture also need to be taken into consideration, it further helps in saving time and resources. You can further go for comparative analysis of advertising across diverse media or markets. This can help your business comprehend whether it needs to revise its advertising strategy.
A clear benchmarking needs to be done for successful campaign for any ads to track customer response, such as exclusive assembling codes, coupons, or web links.
Well-articulated advertising research won’t just influence your advertising strategy. As with any constituent of your marketing mix, the eventual goal is to upsurge sales and grow your business.
The question or thoughts get provoked in following points
What is advertising analysis?
What’s the difference between a ad audit and ad analysis?
What is a ad association, attribute or perception?
What’s more important, understanding the tangible or intangible elements of an ad?
Importance of Advertising Research-
Questions such as- “Why netizens follow every trend of advertisements on a serious note?” “Who is a consumer?” “Why digital ads become viral?” “Why people believe whatever they see ads online?” can be answered only through advertising research. Advertising Research helps in- understanding the vehicles of media better, recognizing and empathetic negative effects of ad messages, and developing advertising literacy content. Ad research has the potential to bring another phenomenon to create ‘Acts’ instead of Ads. And so, there is a calamitous need to investigate the nature of advertising along with studying the audience in depth in order to understand its impact and reach. Now just think and feel how you perceive and feel about doing or be a part of this advertising research? Is it essential? Research is an continuous determination that requires lots of human power (knowledge to pulse of the audience) and hence “the supplementary, the additional”. I urge all the aspire students who have inclination towards advertising should know more about research to join this interesting and very much relevant field. To conclude I would like to end with a quote – ‘advertising is a story unfolding across all customers touch points!!!”.
