1. Free Association tests
Free association utilizes the ‘projective hypothesis’ by encouraging the respondent to provide the first set of words or associations that comes to mind after their exposure to a stimulus - such as a product category, brand name or brand symbol Then follow up with probes and amplifications. Initial reactions tend to be pragmatic but later ones show paths to emotional ideas
Ask respondents to say what comes into their head when exposed to the copy Then follow up with probes and amplifications
Initial reactions tend to be pragmatic but later ones show paths to emotional ideas
Verbal association tests help to obtain information about the attitude of a respondent to certain idea or concepts named by the words of the respondent's native language. A typical procedure is as follows: participants are asked to respond to a copy with the words that the stimulus evokes in their mind.
2. Direct questioning
Direct questioning - elicits a full range of responses from which researchers can infer how well advertising messages convey key copy points. It is especially effective for testing alternative ads in the early stages of development.
The heart and soul of copy research is the depth interview, a lengthy (one to two hours), one-on-one, personal interview, conducted directly by the copy researcher. Much of the power of the depth interview is dependent upon the insight, sensitivity, and skill of the researcher. The interviewing task cannot be delegated to
traditional marketing research interviewers—who have no training in motivational techniques.
Marketers test any part of direct mail package. Not sure that envelope teaser is a good one? Try a split test: mail several hundred to one groups of names and another teaser to another group.
Marketers test any part of direct mail package. One of the most commonly used direct mail test is split test: To test for e.g. an envelope teaser, mailers are send to several hundred to one groups of names and another teaser to another group.
The one that gets the best response is the one will most likely use in "Roll out".
Rolling out simply means mailing to the entire list instead of small, test groups of names. Remember, one can test any part of Direct Mail package: the sales letter, the brochure, the lift letter, etc., so.
When testing any part of a direct mail package, one should only change one component at a time. Careful analysis of results, identification of factors that can improve response, such as emphasizing better or different product features and benefits, and fast correction and execution of new follow-up mailings often yields a better result in subsequent mailing efforts.
4. Statement-comparison tests: In Statement comparison, respondents are given different sentences and
asked to give their opinion.
5. Qualitative interviews
At the most basic level, interviews are conversations. Qualitative research interviews can be defined as "attempts to understand the world from the subjects' point of view, to unfold the meaning of peoples' experiences, to uncover their views on the specific subject.
Unlike conversations in daily life, which are usually reciprocal exchanges, qualitative interviews involve an interviewer who is in charge of structuring and directing the questioning.
In qualitative interviews, open-ended responses to questions provide the evaluator with quotations, which are the main source of raw data. It reveals the respondents' levels of emotion, the way in which they have
organized the world, their thoughts about what is happening, their experiences, and their basic perceptions.
Qualitative interviews also promote understanding and change, the emphasis is on intellectual understanding rather than on producing personal views. The task for the qualitative evaluator is to provide a framework within which people can respond in a way that represents accurately and thoroughly their point of view about the copy."
6. Focus Groups:
Definition: limited to those situations where the assembled group is small enough to permit genuine discussion among all its members“.
Interviewing more than one person at a time sometimes proves very useful; some young people need
company to be emboldened to talk, and some topics are better discussed by a small group of people who know each other.
Interviewer asks group members very specific questions about a topic after considerable research has already been completed. Focus group can be define as a "carefully planned discussion designed to obtain perceptions in a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment"
Focus groups can be used at any point in a research program. Stewart and Shamdasani have summarized the more common uses of focus groups to include:
1. obtaining general background information about a topic of interest;
2. generating research hypotheses that can be submitted to further research and testing using more quantitative approaches;
3. stimulating new ideas and creative concepts;
4. diagnosing the potential for problems with a new program, service or product;
5. generating impressions of products, programs, services, institutions, or other objects of interest; 6. learning how respondents talk about the phenomenon of interest which may facilitate quantitative
research tools;
7. interpreting previously obtained qualitative results
The Moderator’s Role
To develop a rapport with the group/ must inspire confidence To ensure people become relaxed and eager to talk
To promote interaction
To focus discussion on topic areas
When a topic is no longer generating fresh ideas the flow of discussion should be changed
7. Motivational research
Motivational research is a type of marketing research that attempts to explain why consumers behave as they do. Motivational research seeks to discover and comprehend what consumers do not fully understand about themselves.
Implicitly, motivational research assumes the existence of underlying or unconscious motives that influence consumer behavior. Motivational research attempts to identify forces and influences that consumers may not be aware of (e.g., cultural factors, sociological forces).
Motivational research is most valuable when powerful underlying motives are suspected of exerting influence upon consumer behavior. Products and services that relate, or might relate, to attraction of the opposite sex, to personal adornment, to status or self-esteem, to power, to death, to fears, or to social taboos are all likely candidates for motivational research.
For example, why do women tend to increase their expenditures on clothing and personal adornment products as they approach the age of 50 to 55?.
The reasons relate to the loss of youth’s beauty and the loss of fertility, and to related fears of losing their husbands' love. It is also a time of life when discretionary incomes are rising (the children are leaving the nest). Other motives are at work as well (women are complicated creatures), but a standard marketing research survey would never reveal these motives, because most women are not really aware of why their interest in expensive adornments increases at this particular point in their lives.
The three major motivational research techniques are observation, focus groups, and depth interviews.
a. Observation can be a fruitful method of deriving hypotheses about human motives. Anthropologists have pioneered the development of this technique. All of us are familiar with anthropologists living with the “natives” to understand their behavior.
b. This same systematic observation can produce equally insightful results about consumer behavior. c. Observation can be accomplished in-person or sometimes through the convenience of video. Usually, personal observation is simply too expensive, and most consumers don’t want an anthropologist living in their household for a month or two.
8. Comprehension and reaction tests
One key concern for the advertisers is whether the ad or commercial conveys the meaning intended. The second concern is the reaction of the ad generates. Obviously, the advertiser does not want an ad that evokes a negative reaction or offends someone. Comprehension and reaction tests are designed to assess the responses. Tests of comprehension and reaction employ no one standard procedure. Personal interviews, group
interviews, and focus groups have all been used for this purpose, and sample sizes vary according to the needs of the client; they typically range from 50 to 200 respondents.
9. Consumer Juries:
This method uses consumer’s representatives of the target market to evaluate the probable success of an ad. Consumer juries may be asked to rate a selection of layouts or copy versions presented in paste-ups on separate sheets.