Stopping Power in advertising can be defined as an advertisement’s ability to capture audience attention and interest.  For a print advertisement this would represent an ad causing a reader to stop reading an article or flipping the pages and take notice of the ad.  For a video commercial this would represent an ad’s ability to capture a viewer’s mental attention (versus such things as competing screens, idle conversation, a quick zap from the remote or perhaps a journey to the fridge for a snack).  Logically, stopping power would be expected to raise the likelihood of viewers actually receiving the advertisement’s intended message.

 

The Benefit of Stopping Power

Among the various ways to measure stopping power, MSW-ARS has used the Scene-to-Scene Trace technique to gauge respondent interest in a commercial. The Scene-to-Scene Trace illustrates how quickly the ad is able to build – or lose – interest, making it a meaningful measure of an ad’s stopping power.

 

 

One useful metric we have derived from studying interest profiles is the slope of the interest profile in the first 5-seconds of a video advertisement. A stopping power hurdle based on the opening slope of the interest profile has been established. The 41% of cases in the MSW-ARS database which were able to attain this hurdle have CCPersuasion® scores which are substantially stronger than those which do not exceed this hurdle.

 

 

While stopping power is clearly beneficial, it should be noted that it is equally important to sustain interest throughout an ad. In fact, those ads that are able to grab attention and hold onto it (by meeting an average interest level hurdle) have even stronger CCPersuasion results, on average.

 

 

Achieving Stopping Power – Visual Complexity

A study published in the paper “The Stopping Power of Advertising: Measures and Effects of Visual Complexity” (Pieters, Wedel & Batra, Journal of Marketing, September 2010) assessed the effect of visual complexity on stopping power for print advertising.  This study found that two types of visual complexity – Feature Complexity and Design Complexity – had opposite effects on the stopping power of print ads.

According to the paper, ads with feature complexity “contain more detail and variation in their basic visual features, color, luminance, and edges” and are “visually cluttered”.  Ads with this type of complexity were found to have poor stopping power.  As an example, this ad from LG is extreme in the detail and variation of its visual features and colors.

 

 

Ads with design complexity are characterized by “the structured variation in terms of specific shapes, objects, and their arrangements in the advertisement” and “intricacy of the creative design”.  The paper established six dimensions to quantify the degree of design complexity of a print ad:

• Quantity of objects (many = complex)
• Irregularity of objects (irregular = complex)
• Dissimilarity of different objects (dissimilar = complex)
• Detail of individual objects – not the ad as a whole (detailed = complex)
• Asymmetry of object arrangements (asymmetric = complex)
• Irregularity of object arrangement (irregular = complex)

Ads with this type of complexity were found to have strong stopping power.  This ad from Bumble Bee has a relatively large number of distinct objects which are irregular and dissimilar (particularly the different ingredient pictures) with extensive detail in the dominant image.  The offset of the can provides an additional feeling of asymmetry and irregularity of object arrangement.

 

 

Observations from Video Ads with Strong Stopping Power

In a non-scientific attempt to understand what type of content in the first 5 seconds of video ads might be driving initial stopping power, the thirty video ads with the highest interest profile opening slope in the MSW-ARS database were reviewed. The following elements were observed across multiple of these ads with strong stopping power:

• Music: particularly music which is lively or suggesting suspense or tension
• Creative Demonstration: a visually engaging demonstration of the product in action
• Suspense: Images or action that provoke curiosity and keep viewers engrossed
• Surprise: An unexpected or novel visual element
• Provocative Statement: Some promise that may sound too good to be true – e.g., “How would you like to look ten years younger”
• Facial Close-Up: This was particularly true for beauty care ads. Note that research has shown that faces have a strong tendency to draw viewer attention and so are likely to detract from the ad’s effectiveness if the facial image is not related to the product itself.
• Scenic Beauty: Needs to relate to the ad’s message
• Children: Caution is also advised in using children, as most of the cases with children had weak CCPersuasion scores possible due to the presence of children not being consistent with the ad’s message or taking attention away from focus on the product.

Note that many of these elements are consistent with the idea of design complexity in that they are related to creativity and the presentation of ideas in a visually unique and engaging manner. A number of the most successful cases have no spoken words in the first 5 seconds but instead use music or visuals to gain viewer interest and attention.  Also it is important that the brand’s identity and the ad’s message not get lost in pursuit of misguided creativity (that which entertains but does not sell).

 

Some Examples

The following ad for Kohler had very strong stopping power, with an opening slope of over 3 times the hurdle level. Not only does it have lively music and a brisk pace, it also is completely product focused and demonstrates the product’s functionality in a creative way.  It also seems to adhere to the principles of using visual complexity by keeping it simple (avoiding the visual clutter of feature complexity), but also attaining design complexity through varying not only the number, arrangement and size of the shower heads but also the speed and type of demonstrations.

 

 

TurboTax’s Humpty Dumpty ad brings both suspense (the urgency of the armor clad men rushing through a modern urban landscape) and surprise (the unexpected visual of the shattered figure of Humpty Dumpty) in its first five seconds.

 

 

This Super Bowl ad from Intel gains attention by making the provocative claim that “Intel 360 Replay makes everything look epic.”

 

 

The opening of the following viral ad for Miss Dior perfume features a facial close-up (of Natalie Portman) which may work in this case since the product is all about allure and image.  Its music also evokes a feeling of tension and suspense which likely aids in generating strong stopping power.

 

 

Kia’s popular Super Bowl ad featuring Melissa McCarthy opens with a shot of a Kia driving through a forest of soaring pines.  Ultimately this opening visual of scenic beauty is tied to the message of Kia’s crossover vehicle being the most fuel efficient in its class.

 

 

For more information on how our communications research tools can help improve your advertising’s effectiveness, please contact us at aklein@msw-ars.com.

 

 

 

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.

 

Evidence-Based, Customer Journey Management to Build Brands

The Opportunity for Marketers

As customers become exposed to a cascading list of product choices, store choices, and information sources, the opportunity exists to connect all the communications about any specific brand and product into a single consistent, coherent message relevant to the individual customer’s needs.  The customer journey has emerged as the concept that provides the opportunity to best deliver an integrated marketing communications approach at an enterprise level.

The various customer-facing functions in organizations now have the opportunity to integrate their individual, principal goals to deliver a single voice for building brands:

• Customer Experience — Every daily contact point a moment-of-truth to opportunity to exceed expectations
• Digital Communications — Automated intelligence and delivery to enhance daily relationships
• Traditional Communications — Process creation and delivery fully integrated with digital in driving marketing ROI
• Experiential — Events and sponsorships to cut-through clutter and energize the brand
• Corporate Communications — One unfavorable rating or post can undo the entire marketing plan; authentic information content drives brand growth
• Purchase site — Online and offline, 24/7 access and critical convergence of messaging

Common Ground toward Effective Brand-Building

All these functions have been departing from their parallel paths and converging based around the following premises:

• All brands are vulnerable to losing customers through a single bad experience.
• Brand strength is created through a history of positive experiences.
• Every characteristic of the brand involves communications and relies upon communications for success.
• The customer journey concept is an extension of past models for consumer decision-making.
• Traditional and digital communications must be integrated which requires their development processes to become integrated.
• All the functions involved still rely upon key, evidence-based, branding concepts – The MSW-ARS RDE model for brand-building links closely to the customer journey map for any defined product segment.

The opportunity exists to apply common metrics that measure short-term and long-term communications success across functions, within functions, and within elements of each function, across a customer journey.

Evidence-Based Metrics; the Common Language for Integration

Metrics that truly capture the reality of the interactive contact at each touch point along the customer journey must be evidence-based to ensure unified direction and consistent execution across organization functions for delivering an integrated communications approach.

MSW-ARS solutions for each step of the journey contain the Customer Commitment Preference metric that is more sensitive to immediate unit share and brand franchise shifts than any other metric in the market.

Source:  MASB

The validated connection between Customer Commitment Preference and customer lifetime value enables the team to know precise return-on-investment for each individual element and the collective program across functions.

To develop insights to addressing continuous improvement within each touch point, any customer journey analysis must address three basic questions:

To capture thinking (cognitive) and feeling (emotive) measurement requires empirically proven metrics that can uncover both the stated and derived importance of each touch point and communications for assessment of both expectations and delivery to expectations.

Convergence around Customer Journey as the Key to Brand Building

MSW-ARS has developed empirical evidence of how communications work that can accurately connect short-term sales and long-term brand development to the performance of the individual and collective touch points in the journey.

Taking Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning to another Level

Previous brand experience is a principal characteristic for segmentation and target opportunity determination at the need generation stage of the customer journey:

• Neuroscience-based, unconscious measurement of derived importance uncovers un-voiced concerns before they become lapsed or lost customers.
• Category measurement of attitudes and usage across all measurements and media formats to identify opportunities to get things right at the beginning and deliver a consistent, coherent message.

Linking the Big Idea and Content Development

Research on how communications works has been conducted across the MSW-ARS, fifty-year, database.  The evidence clearly indicates that the key message of any product is built into the product design.  This was reported most recently by the MASB, the Marketing Accountability Standards Board at the 2017 Annual Conference for the Advertising Research Foundation.

Therefore, the opportunity for integration of the various communications programs must start at the beginning.

The MSW-ARS Sifter product has been designed specifically to measure the strength of the Value Proposition.  Additionally, the approach provides an assessment of effectiveness in delivering this value proposition that can be attributed to various communications elements and that can be applied in long-form and short-form content for scaling across every customer touch point.

Sifter is not intended to replace AI in the CRM/Marketing Automation system.  Sifter complements AI by:

• Ensuring that the communications program has an effective launch.
• Supports first mover growth opportunities for the brand.
• Provides the foundation for insights at the need generation stage and future learning from AI contacts.
• Can be integrated into decision-support, desktop applications to help serve as a cross-functional theme for coordinated, daily message responses.
• Ensures delivery of the fundamental, brand value proposition across all touch points.

Touch Point Effectiveness

The MSW-ARS TouchPoint product is also founded on more than fifty years of empirical evidence for how communications work.  The successful application of this solution and the certainty of its ability to predict results and lower business risk have been proven in a study by the MASB involving multiple communications research firms across twelve categories.   The MASB study results have been presented to the ARF and the AMA, written about in The Economist, The International Finance Review, The Journal of Brand Management and CFO Magazine, and has been discussed with the IASB (The International Accounting Standards Board).  Customer Commitment Preference is linked to Market Share & Cash Flow and hence to the NPV of the brand.

The Touch Point solution is flexible to allow brand teams to intervene and test any point along the journey at any time to develop empirical knowledge for continuous improvement.

Success at the Moments of Truth

Effective communications during the consideration, engagement and evaluation stages lead to inclusion in the consideration set at the first moment of truth when the purchase is made.  Communications then strengthen the purchase and remove dissonance at the second moment of truth when the customer receives service for the product.

Application of the MSW-ARS ACCU*TRAK solution allows company and brand teams to invest resources at a precise point in the journey that will most effectively improve both the contribution of that single touch point, but, more importantly, the overall unit share results sought by each of the various marketing functions.

Conclusion

Organizational changes indicate that brands fully understand the need to integrate the various functions, but, don’t yet fully understand how to link them in an effective manner.  MSW-ARS has an answer to this need that will allow brands to move ahead of their competitors in making this critical adjustment to finding common ground… cross-functional, evidence-based metrics that will enable marketing organizations to successfully implement integrated marketing plans across each customer journey.