Roy Morgan Launches 'Natural' Ad Testing

Roy Morgan Research is bring to Australia and NZ a US-developed system that claims to revolutionise ad testing by providing 'natural exposure' to adverts, avoiding the more artificial results achieved from normal test viewing conditions.

The 'Natural Exposure' tool will be available to clients in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Brisbane in the next few weeks. US communications and research firm Mapes & Ross, bought by Roy Morgan late last year, has been using the tool for more than 30 years.

Mapes & Ross MD Harold Ross says it is important that ad test audiences do not know they are being assessed for reaction: 'People always react differently to advertising when they know they're a guinea pig... When we recruit people, we don't tell them it's to make advertising more effective. We tell them it's to make magazines and television more interesting'.

Ross's experience of testing more than 31,000 TV and print ads over more than three decades has taught him some basic rules about making an advert stick in the viewer's mind. These include putting the brand name at the start of a TV commercial, and ensuring that it has a visual impact. He adds: 'A revealing test is to run the ad in its entirety with no sound and see how much of your message is communicated'.

Roy Morgan is online at www.roymorgan.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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