Senior Brand Marketer Bans Ad-Recall Research

April 6, 2006

A very senior brand marketer of a Fortune 100 company told me today that ad-recall research is not allowed in his organization. Why?

“Because you can put shit on the table in front of me. I’ll certainly recall it, but I sure as hell won’t buy it. Nor will I eat it. Recall is a poor excuse for advertising accountability.”

He’s got a point.

 

  • Anonymous

    He may have a point, but it doesn’t seem very valid. If a significant amount of people show that they continuously cannot remember your ad, then the advertising is not effective. Whether it’s the ad iself or the buy, something needs to be changed. I would think.

  • http://www.digitalstreetjournal.com Jonathan Trenn

    He may have a point, but it doesn’t seem very valid. If a significant amount of people show that they continuously cannot remember your ad, then the advertising is not effective. Whether it’s the ad iself or the buy, something needs to be changed. I would think.

  • http://www.attentionmax.com Max Kalehoff

    Yes…but what if nobody remembered the ad in an ad-recall survey, but it did achieve its objectives, i.e., increased sales, changed perception or behavioral shift? That’s what ultimately matters. This is actually a major scandal with advertising agencies…they often commission research and want to see if their campaign was noticed. This is often a self-congratulatory attempt to prove ROI. Surely, in cases it can contribute to ROI understanding, but not in and of itself. (Welcome to the new world of marketing where marketing increasingly reports into the corporate procurement office — aka cardboard box purchaser, COO or worse, CFO — and is desperate to prove show value where it sometimes may be lacking).

    It is less common for agencies to actually pursue the more difficult, more accountable questions, such as: did the campaign actually achieve a business objective? Not recall, which is more a measure of relative success of delivery of a tactic, but something closer to the true business objective, like sales or market share.

  • http://www.attentionmax.com Max Kalehoff

    Yes…but what if nobody remembered the ad in an ad-recall survey, but it did achieve its objectives, i.e., increased sales, changed perception or behavioral shift? That’s what ultimately matters. This is actually a major scandal with advertising agencies…they often commission research and want to see if their campaign was noticed. This is often a self-congratulatory attempt to prove ROI. Surely, in cases it can contribute to ROI understanding, but not in and of itself. (Welcome to the new world of marketing where marketing increasingly reports into the corporate procurement office — aka cardboard box purchaser, COO or worse, CFO — and is desperate to prove show value where it sometimes may be lacking).

    It is less common for agencies to actually pursue the more difficult, more accountable questions, such as: did the campaign actually achieve a business objective? Not recall, which is more a measure of relative success of delivery of a tactic, but something closer to the true business objective, like sales or market share.

  • http://www.charlesfrith.com charlesfrith

    Crucially I’ve yet to see a client acknowledge that post campaign ad recall is too low and recognise that the more creative executions all too often championed by the agency is the most effective solution.

    In addition it’s all too often the case that the marketing objective is invariably an arbitrary figure with little or no rationale other than rudimentary analogous data.

  • Charles Frith

    Crucially I’ve yet to see a client acknowledge that post campaign ad recall is too low and recognise that the more creative executions all too often championed by the agency is the most effective solution.

    In addition it’s all too often the case that the marketing objective is invariably an arbitrary figure with little or no rationale other than rudimentary analogous data.