Q. How can we use research to help us develop our advertising?

A. Qualitative research has traditionally been used either to surface ideas for advertising or to check for “red flags” in finished/nearly finished work. But recently I worked with some clients who had (from research) come up with three rough concepts for possible development. They wanted to know which of the three was best – and why!

Restaurant Case Study* — The restaurant group and their advertising agency had used the results from their strong research program (regular customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups on specific areas of concern) to come up with three possible campaigns:

• The restaurant group liked one (a “warm and fuzzy” branding campaign)
• The agency liked a different one (more hi-tech with the latest graphics and effects)
• There was a third one that both thought was pretty good – but it didn’t have a real champion.

Because there were elements that had to be seen, and because the concepts were in rough form that required some explanation, Focus Groups were used to test the campaigns.

Groups were held with recent customers and potential customers. To everyone’s surprise (mine, too, this doesn’t happen very often in ad testing) all of the group participants strongly preferred one campaign over the other two.

Have you guessed? It was the third campaign. Respondents liked it because they believed it showed what a restaurant really DOES for you, and showed it in an interesting light. They thought the warm and fuzzy campaign was “pretty” but not really about a restaurant at all. They thought the graphics and effects of the second campaign were great, but they didn’t “get” why a restaurant would want to use them when they detracted from the message.

The restaurant group and agency listened to their customers and developed the third campaign. Not only has it been very successful for them in terms of sales but their employees liked it as much as their customers did! (And as a bonus, the campaign has won a number of marketing awards).

*This example has been altered to disguise the actual client and product class.