The cost of
advertising can be incredibly expensive. In the U.S. in 2009 the top three
advertisers alone spent more than $11 billion on advertising in promotion
(Belch, 2001, pg. 603). When spending that much money simply to advertise
products or services it is important to make sure that they are effective and
are accurately portraying the desired message and reaching the desired
audiences. It’s important to conduct marketing research to somewhat accomplish
this and to figure out what you believe the desired audience would enjoy and
react to, but the original, primary research can only tell advertisers so much.
There are several
different types of pretests that advertisers can use based on when in the
process they pretest and what they are testing. One example is concept testing.
This is done early in the campaign development process to determine the
consumer’s reactions to a potential ad and to evaluate alternatives (Belch, pg.
611). The material tested is often just a rough sketch or headline and
positioning statement as well as color schemes. Another type of pretesting is
rough art, copy, and commercial testing. These include comprehension and
reaction tests, which determine if the advertisement portrays the intended
meaning, and consumer juries, where consumers rate different layouts or copy versions
(Belch, pg. 613). As well as pretesting while developing the advertisement,
marketers also pretest the finished ads before putting them into circulation
with readability tests, portfolio tests, and on-air tests.
Once
an advertisement has been developed marketers typically want to pretest the
ads. Pretesting is done before the campaign is put into place and may occur any
time during idea generation to testing the final version (Belch, pg. 609).
There are several reasons for
marketers to pretest ads in order to measure the effectiveness. Pretesting can
help avoid costly mistakes and allow for the evaluation of alternative
strategies to determine what one may work best. Additionally it can increase
advertising efficiency. Ultimately by conducting a pretest it can identify the
best ads, get rid of the worst, and enhance good ideas.
Even
though there are many advantages to pretesting, there are marketers who do not
employ this strategy for several reasons. Reasons that pretesting is not used
include the cost, that the storyboard or mock-up may not accurately portray the
final product, and time delays (Belch, pg. 610). Though it costs money to
conduct these pretests, it can ultimately save money and time by keeping an
ineffective or harmful advertisement out of circulation.
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