Ad Test Product Simulates the Great Outdoors

Ipsos MORI's advertising research division Ipsos-ASI has launched Next*Outdoor, an online virtual environment product for testing of outdoor ads. The firm says it aims to encourage advertisers to begin including this major component in the research mix.

Next*Outdoor uses online technology to emulate the environment in which ads would actually be noticed by positioning them in a series of still street scenes, leading the respondent through them. The outdoor scenes aim for maximum realism with images of traffic, shops and people. As in the real UK, the firm says, seventy five per cent of scenes feature a billboard or poster. The ad being tested is slotted in to one of the ad spaces shown and can be tested in any size, from six sheets to 96 sheets. After moving through the street scenes, participants are asked questions about their journey and what they remember seeing, first unprompted and then prompted.

Participants will be recruited from Ipsos MORI's online panel, and will not be made aware of the nature of the test in advance: as a result, each individual can only be approached once to participate.

Next*Outdoor ties in with another new product, Ipsos MORI's new Emoti*scape methodology, to help advertisers gauge their target audience's emotional and rational responses. The latter offers respondents a range of words and pictures linked to possible emotions, then asks them to choose those that best encapsulate the feelings they experience while seeing the ad and those they have about the brand as a result.

James Mundell, MD of Ipsos MORI's ASI division, comments: 'We all know TV advertising tends to get the lion's share of ad testing budgets but it's a risky strategy to defer testing other branded communications as a result. Outdoor advertising can be an extremely effective medium but it's expensive, and companies run the risk of missing out on maximising the effectiveness of their ad spend, by not pre-testing their non-TV creative ideas.' He adds: 'To achieve genuine results, test scenarios must be set in as close to a realistic setting as possible, and we are confident Next*Outdoor has taken a significant step towards achieving this often elusive goal.'

A new joint site for Ipsos MORI is under development at www.ipsos-mori.com - in the meantime the two are online at www.mori.com and www.ipsos.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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