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Independent Audit Confirms MSW-ARS TouchPoint® Copy Test System’s Powerful Linkage to Financial Performance

February 20th, 2018 Comments off

Last week the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) announced that TouchPoint®, MSW-ARS’s advertising copy test solution, has completed the Marketing Metric Audit Protocol (MMAP) – MASB’s formal process for validating the relationship between a marketing measurement and financial performance.

TouchPoint uses a behavioral, multi-media experience to collect the criterion CCPersuasion® metric. This unique approach avoids common pitfalls, such as cooperation bias, of more direct approaches and thus allows for a more meaningful measurement of consumer preferences.  In fact, CCPersuasion utilizes the patented CCPreference® system (also successfully audited by MASB) as its foundation.  The TouchPoint system is flexible enough to measure individual ads as well as full multi-execution campaigns across a wide variety of media types, and integrates extensive diagnostic feedback demonstrated in the audit to have a strong track record in helping to improve the effectiveness of tested copy.

In the MMAP audit, the CCPersuasion metric was assessed against the MMAP ten characteristics of an ideal metric, as well as MASB’s guidelines for measures of marketing productivity.

Most vitally, the audit requires metrics to substantiate a specific link to financial performance. Regarding the TouchPoint system, the MMAP audit concluded that the CCPersuasion metric is able to quantify the likelihood and magnitude of an ad’s impact on future sales volume and market share.  This is based on a wealth of information collected over many years proving the predictive validity of the CCPersuasion metric.

Specifically, the audit indicates that the CCPersuasion measure predicts TV advertising’s impact on market results at ~0.90 correlation level when the effect of the ad is isolated from the other elements of the marketing mix. One published study that substantiates this conclusion relates the predicted sales volume impacted by advertising to the actual sales volume impacted from independent Marketing Mix Modeling analysis:

 

What does this mean for advertisers? Well, there are a number of different aspects of the TouchPoint system that have been demonstrated to help improve advertising’s Return on Investment.

On the most basic level, an advertising copy test system is used to qualify specific executions for airing or is applied upstream to determine which initiatives should precede for further development. Since TouchPoint uses a criterion measure strongly related to sales impact, advertisers can have confidence that these decisions will be made on the basis of improving advertising’s return.  TouchPoint takes this a step further by providing the Fair Share® benchmark, a unique modeled norm that is superior to traditional normative approaches.  Fair Share represents an estimate of the sales effectiveness, in terms of CCPersuasion level, for a typical ad for the advertised brand, given the category environment and the brand’s position in that environment.

In addition to giving a meaninfgul go/no-go indication on copy, the magnitude validation of the CCPersuasion metric allows for a forecast of an ad’s expected impact when aired. This is implemented through use of an easy to use elasticity grid which sets expectations based on the CCPersuasion level.

 

 

In addition, MSW-ARS has decades of experience researching and publishing on the topic of advertising wearout. By marrying the findings of validation studies with these wearout learnings, we developed the patented Outlook® media planner.   The Outlook planner, which has been cited in numerous award winning case studies, enables brands to forecast sales impact, plan the number of executions needed to meet business objectives, and allocate media spend among multiple tested executions so as to optimize return on advertising investment.

 

 

The TouchPoint system is also capable of assessing early stage stimuli using the same validated methodology to raise the odds of success before costly development on specific executions has begun. This is demonstrated through a study linking the test results of early stage video value propositions with the CCPersuasion levels of finished executions developed from these propositions.  The results show that ads based on strong value propositions are much more likely to perform above benchmark at the finished execution stage.

 

 

As noted earlier, the TouchPoint system incorporates extensive diagnostics that have been shown to significantly relate to the criterion CCPersuasion measure and which have been shown to provide guidance for improving the effectiveness of tested copy. This diagnostic learning is also key in helping brands understand what is working and how it can best be deployed.  The potential for improvement fueled by validated diagnostic feedback over the course of time is illustrated by a four year case study in which a global MSW-ARS client was able to improve both qualification rate and average CCPersuasion level year-over-year for each year of the study.

 

 

Finally, it should be noted that CCPreference, the foundation of TouchPoint’s CCPersuasion metric, is a common metric running throughout the range of MSW-ARS solutions from early stage creative development through copy testing and creative and brand health tracking. This provides marketers with a unique ability to better connect research from one stage of the advertising process to the next, avoiding potential outages that can occur when attempting to move between different stages in the research process which are assessed using different systems and metrics.

 

 

To learn more about the TouchPoint copy test system, it’s performance on the MMAP audit and how it can help improve your brand’s financial return from advertising, please contact us at aklein@mswarsresearch.com.

 

MSW-ARS’s Copy Test Solution, TouchPoint® Completes MASB Independent Metric Audit

February 20th, 2018 Comments off

News Release                                       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

MSW-ARS’s Copy Test Solution, TouchPoint® Completes MASB Independent Metric Audit

Lake Success, NY, February 15, 2018 – MSW-ARS announced today that their advertising research solution, TouchPoint has completed the Marketing Metric Audit Protocol (MMAP), the formal process for validating the relationship between a marketing measurement and financial performance as established by the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB).

Using TouchPoint MSW-ARS is able to measure, forecast and optimize advertising messages – for individual ads as well as full multi-execution campaigns across a variety of media types. The MMAP audit assessed the Touchpoint CCPersuasionâ metric against ten ideal characteristics, including relevance, predictability and objectivity.

According to MASB, “The MSW-ARS copy testing system, TouchPoint, provides quantitative prediction of the likelihood and magnitude of ad impact on future sales volume and market share.”

Allan Kuse, MASB Director and Advisor to the MMAP Center, noted, “CCPersuasion is the first metric to complete a re-audit after substantial methodological changes. Not only did the re-audit verify the results of their 2009 assessment, it documented additional capabilities such as capturing how price premiums impact advertising-driven brand choices.”

Tony Pace, MASB President and CEO, added, “We commend MSW•ARS Research for their on-going commitment to independent assessment and review. This newest assessment of CCPersuasion proves that marketing metrics can evolve with the changing needs of the industry without being compromised. The MMAP audit gives marketers confidence that the metrics they use continue to be both relevant and predictive over time.”

MSW-ARS’s patented measure of brand preference – CCPreference – also completed the MMAP audit in 2016.

Art Klein, Managing Partner of MSW•ARS said, “By submitting both our TouchPoint and CCPreference measures to MASB for audit, we are able to demonstrate independent validation and importantly, recognition of our measure as an exemplar.  MASB had already chosen to use CCPreference in their own extensive research culminating in their Brand Investment & Valuation Model. CCPreference has exhibited the strongest relationship to sales performance of all metrics reviewed by MASB in that research, explaining nearly 90% of variation in brands’ market shares.  This review built upon that work to verify the predicting of financial outcomes for advertising before launch.”

Doug Crang, Senior Director of Research at MSW-ARS added, “The MASB MMAP audit provided the opportunity to benchmark our TouchPoint copy testing system against the marketing industry’s most comprehensive and rigorous set of standards for marketing metrics, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results.  The TouchPoint system’s criterion CCPersuasion measure is built on the foundation of the patented and previously audited CCPreference metric. In fact, CCPreference is a common metric running throughout the range of MSW-ARS solutions from early stage creative development through copy testing and creative and brand health tracking, providing marketers with a unique ability to better connect research from one stage of the advertising process to the next.”

About MSW-ARS, Inc.

MSW-ARS offers a product suite that evaluates, quantifies and optimizes the impact of advertising messages and campaigns comprised of any combination of touch points, including television, print, radio, outdoor and digital.  MSW-ARS helps marketers build brands by providing world class research solutions in the following areas: brand strategy, all stages of creative development from early concept to fully finished ads, campaign evaluation across all marketing and media channels, advertising and brand equity tracking, media planning and strategy, return-on-investment, and forecasting.  The company provides solutions and consulting to marketers across traditional and digital marketing including: media mix optimization, media budget allocation, media and message connection, channel selection, digital media and emerging platforms.

MSW-ARS has a roster of marquee clients representing virtually every product category, including: Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail, Financial Services, Telecommunications, Technology, Automotive, and Pharmaceutical industries.

About MASB, the Marketing Accountability Standards Board

MASB is an organization of top-tier marketers, measurement providers, industry associations and business academics devoted to establishing and advancing accountable marketing practices that drive business growth with tools like the MMAP Metric Catalog and the Continuous Improvement in Return Assessment. For more information, visit themasb.org or email info@themasb.org.