have tests that determine display effectiveness, attraction power, attention-holding power and brand name readability.
We must have tests that reveal consumer attitudes and actual preferences, or choices in which self-interest is involved. Mere interviews will not disclose such information. The tests have to be conducted on an unconscious level so that the respondents feel free to express their true attitudes and real feelings.
I have seen some of the most beautiful packages fail to pass an eye-movement test that measures eye-flow and attention-holding power.
I have seen some stunning packages that failed the readability test. In other words, the brand name or product name on the package was too difficult to read from the shelf.
Many appealing, aesthetically fine packages fail in the visibility test, which means that they are lost in the super market. They fail to attract attention.
There are packages that have great display effectiveness. They pass all three ocular tests—visibility, readability and eye-movement—but they fail in the association or preference tests.
A package that is effective in display, that has a high percentage of favorable associations and rates high in the preference test, is an effective marketing tool.
After the manufacturer of a consumer product knows he has a product of the right quality and an effective package, he should examine the advertising problem.
The Advertising
Advertising is the number three wall of a marketing structure. The kind and amount of advertising has much to do with the degree of success of any marketing program. Without doubt, the quantitative aspect of an advertising program is a major factor in any successful marketing. However, as I have pointed out, there are many instances in which the sheer weight of a large sum of money was not sufficient for producing a successful marketing program.
The qualitative aspect of advertising is at least as important as the quantitative one. No one will deny that the character of the campaign, the nature of the marketing theme, the type of printed ads and kind of filmed commercials have much to do with the success or failure of a marketing program.
Ad agencies have “copy geniuses,” men and women who have a natural or acquired ability to create unusual advertising copy. Like most geniuses, like most creative people, they often talk to their own kind, not to the general public. Many ad agency executives are aware that printed ads and filmed commercials have to be tested with potential consumers to determine their marketing effectiveness. And how do most of them test the printed ads and filmed commercials? They use “playbacks” or “recognition” tests. Such tests are conducted on the assumption that printed ads and filmed commercials affect people, only on a conscious level.
Studies that have been conducted in the last twelve years show conclusively that individuals are influenced by advertising without being aware of that influence. An individual is motivated to buy something by an ad, but he often does not know what motivated him.
Most advertising agencies plan all advertising on the assumption that printed ads and filmed commercials affect consumers only on a conscious level. That is why they measure the effectiveness of ads by means of “playbacks” or “recognition” tests. The ad that is recalled or recognized by the greatest number of potential consumers is considered the best ad. Filmed commercials are tested on the same general principle.
I have known a number of advertising campaigns consisting of ads with high “retention” and “recognition” scores that have failed^ Neither the agency nor the client could understand why the campaign was a flop. The fact that the ads antagonized people did not enter their minds.
That consumers had unfavorable attitudes toward the ads did not occur to them. That the ads did not motivate people to buy had no meaning. They were impressed only with the fact that a carefully chosen sample of potential consumers of the product remembered the ad once they had seen it and could recognize the filmed commercial after viewing it once.
Since most people are not always conscious of having seen an ad, billboard or filmed commercial, they cannot always tell about it in an interview. Thus, the most effective, the most motivating experimental ads may have been discarded because they were not remembered or recognized by most of the respondents.
We have conducted many tests in the last dozen years showing conclusively that people have to be motivated to remember objects or ads and have to be motivated to buy a specific product. Over ten years ago I reported experiments showing conclusively that ads have much more effect on the unconscious mind than on the conscious.
We have much evidence that for advertising to be effective, it must not merely tell people to buy the product, it must motivate them to buy it. For an ad to be motivating, it must be pleasing, not irritating. It must have favorable connotations and pleasant associations.
How do we determine the effectiveness of an ad if not by “playback” and “recognition” tests? We have a number of tests, each of which shows one aspect of effectiveness.
First we put the ad through an eye-movement test that shows how the eyes travel over the ad and where attention is held. If this test is favorable, then the ad is put through two types of association tests, one that shows consumers’ attitudes toward the ad and another that discloses whether the ad upgrades or downgrades the product. The second test is conducted because the ad is not supposed to sell itself. It has to sell the product. In conjunction with the association test, we have an indirect preference test that shows actual preference, consumer action in which self-interest is involved.
We don’t want to know merely whether the potential consumers remember the ad. We want to find out whether the ad makes the potential consumer favorably disposed toward the product. We want to know whether it motivates the potential consumer to buy the product.
Price
The fourth side or wall of a marketing structure is price. The average consumer assumes that price is based on cost. We all know that the manufacturer must consider a multitude of factors in determining the price. He has to add up the cost of producing, promoting and selling the article before he can establish its retail price. Here I want to discuss an often neglected factor in pricing, the psychological factor.
Before going further into the discussion of pricing, we should divide all merchandise into necessities and luxuries. These are broad classifications which are important elements in pricing.
Seasonal vegetables and fruits are necessities. The same produce, out of season, is a luxury. In June, strawberries can be considered as a necessary food, but in January, strawberries are definitely a luxury. Meat is a necessity; steak is a luxury. Fish from a nearby body of water should not be classified as a luxury. Sea fish on the coast is not a luxury. Any food that has no more nutritional value than a less costly food should be classified as a luxury.
Commodities that are necessary for daily living are highly competitive and, at best, are profitable only because they are sold in large volume. Pricing of staples is almost entirely based on cost plus a small margin of profit per unit. Retail prices of common foods and other necessities in communities of unskilled workers whose incomes are minimal can be set primarily on two considerations, cost and competition.
In the United States, in communities where the standard of living is generally high, luxuries become necessities, psychological satisfactions become needs and emotional factors become daily habits.
In primitive and agricultural societies, symbolism played a major role only in religion. In our present-day, highly industrialized society, symbolism plays a vital role in almost every
