Advertisers should regularly evaluate two types of advertising results: the communication effects and the sales and profit effects. How are these two results measured?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Measuring the communication effects of an ad or ad campaign tells whether the ads and media are communicating the ad message well. Individual ads can be tested before or after they are run. Before an ad is placed, the advertiser can show it to consumers, ask how they like it, and measure message recall or attitude changes resulting from it. After an ad is run, the advertiser can measure how the ad affected consumer recall or product awareness, knowledge, and preference. Pre-and post-evaluations of communication effects can be made for entire advertising campaigns as well. Sales and profit effects of advertising are often much harder to measure. Sales and profits are affected by many factors other than advertising—such as product features, price, and availability. One way to measure the sales and profit effects of advertising is to compare past sales and profits with past advertising expenditures. Another way is through experiments. For example, to test the effects of different advertising spending levels, a company could vary the amount it spends on advertising in different market areas and measure the differences in the resulting sales and profit levels. More complex experiments could be designed to include other variables, such as differences in the ads or media used.