Millward Brown reveals the most comprehensive advertising pre-testing validation ever conducted covering 37 categories and 33 countries
Millward Brown, a global leader in brand, media and communications research and provider of LinkTM, the world’s most widely used ad copy-evaluation and optimization tool, has conducted the most comprehensive worldwide cross-category pre-testing validation to date.
LinkTM is based on the sales results of 1,795 TV ads in multiple markets and acts as a useful predictor of future sales based on the advertisement’s creative approach. The tool has shown that sales success factors are the same across multiple categories and markets.
Ben Dixon, managing director at Millward Brown Australia, says this latest development is further proof that LinkTM can be trusted to be predictive of sales. This, combined with Millward Brown’s understanding of how communication is used to build brand equity, is why more than 80% of the world’s leading brands work with Millward Brown.
Compelling Creative + Compelling Messaging = Sales
This work focused on short-term sales return (sales generated in the eight weeks from ad air date) and demonstrates that the short-term sales effectiveness is best delivered by compelling creative combined with compelling messaging.
Compelling creative is classed as being both engaging and strongly linked to the brand.
In LinkTM this is measured by the Awareness Index (AI; a validated measure of branded engagement).The second area of compelling messaging is measured by the Persuasion score in LinkTM (a direct measure of the effect of the copy on brand consideration).
This work has shown that these two drivers of success are independent factors, with little correlation between them. The best prediction of the short-term sales potential of advertising comes from combining AI and Persuasion into a composite measure, called the Link Short Term Sales Likelihood (STSL) value.
The STSL score shows a very clear relationship with in-market sales return: strong performing ads are four times more likely to generate a large sales return than the weak ads. Overall, 76% of strong performers see share increases.
The Short Term Likelihood of Sales (STSL) can be provided with only the pre-test results. But with basic volume share data and very simple pricing and media spend assessments the probable magnitude of the sales increase could be predicted. With a more tailored approach for an individual brand, where full spend, pricing and brand elasticity data is available, Link can provide specific sales volume predictions.
Consistent by region and category but varies by advertising need
The 1,795 cases used in the research came from 33 countries across six continents, with brands from 37 consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories. A broadly consistent relationship was found between sales and AI and Persuasion across geographies and categories.
The research shows differences in the sales drivers for new brands compared to established brands. A compelling and well branded creative (measured by AI) is more important for established brands, while new brands are under more pressure to present a compelling message (Persuasion).
This shows that while large established brands can rely on reinforcing their fame and using brand buzz to generate sales, new brands need to work harder to communicate a compelling reason to choose them.
The power of emotion
The research also demonstrates a clear relationship between the emotional impact of advertising and the short-term sales return. This relationship is much stronger for established brands than new brands. Similarly, established brand ads with purely emotional content and no rational messaging tend to out-perform those with just rational messaging. The reverse is true for new brands, where rational content is more likely to drive sales. However, the most potent communication is a combination of the emotional and rational together. Emotions are an important driver of decisions, but successful brands also provide a rational ‘reason for choice’ to help consumers justify their decisions.
Beyond short-term sales
The focus of this validation was on the short-term sales return, but engagement as measured by the Awareness Index is also more likely to deliver long-term share gains.
Previous validation indicates that key contributors to long-term sales are predicted by brand equity measures such as emotional affinity and brand differentiation, more than by immediate Persuasion.
14 Comments
What a load of tosh. Link testing is about as effective in predicting advertising success as reading the entrails of dead goats.
But least you can eat the dead goat afterwards.
The link test insists that an ad doesn’t communicate effectively unless the fucking product is shown in the first few frames.
It also uses a ‘worm’ that gauges respondent’s interest in your poor little ad over thirty seconds.
As such, John Hegarty’s favourite ad for Alka Seltzer (where two guys bob about in the ocean for twenty five seconds until one disappears – the line being ‘when you’ve eaten something you shouldn’t have’) would NEVER have been approved by MB.
Nor would ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ or, indeed, 1984.
I hope your appearance on the blog is ripped to shreds.
Because, at the end of the day, that’s what you do to fucking ads.
Allegedly.
Not wasting a dime of my marketing dollars on any pretesting.
Great comes from making a leap of faith into new brand spaces.
Not benchmarking from the past.
Some excellent marketing from MB!
But how was this little sample of 1,795 cases chosen from Link’s database of 45,000 case studies?
And why is it only consumer packaged goods?
And finally – independent research in the US, UK and Germany all shows that 70% of TV ads create a short term sales effect – so although a positive Link score might give you a fraction better chance of achieving this already highly likely outcome, what are you sacrificing in terms of efficiency of spend (because with a rational piece of marketing messaging you’ll have to spend many times as much to stand out) or long term brand building (which as MB themselves point out, is compromised by short-term sales driving tactics and ‘persuasion scores’)?
There have been three independent studies of pre-testing research since it was invented in the 1950’s and they all show a negative correlation.
Would MB consider an independent study of their full Link database?
” Overall, 76% of strong performers see share increases. ”
I wouldn’t have thought 76 % is that great a result, given 50% is like tossing a coin and therefore pointless. Kind of means Link is right half the time (26%) which is a fair margin for error. You’d be well served by going with your own judgement.
ballsy for MB to post this here. What do they think they could gain?
Link is the psychological equivalent of thinking the bigger someones head is the smarter they’ll be.
Outmoded, outdated nonsense that helps marketeers cover their arse when their bad advertising doesn’t sell anything – “but it scored a 7 in persuasion – must have been a distribution problem. Can I have bonus now please?”
this is a load of shit!!! Millward Brown methodology forces people to view emotional advertising through a rational lens – and we all know that this simply does not happen in the real world…Link leads to reassuringly shit work!
When an ad fails in market after having link tested well they simply adjust the score post-hoc.
WPP pseudo science peddled to clients lacking any wisdom or confidence.
The issue is that while Link may identify any stinkers, it also works against great (differentiating, bold, category-defying) work. Guinness ‘Surfer’ failed Link. As did Heineken ‘refreshes’. Why? Because they don’t fit with the popular conception of what a beer ad is. It’s the same reason the Aeron chair, the Walkman, the ATM machine and Seinfeld all failed research. They were different. They were unusual. And Link places zero value on differentiation.
And if MB really knew what makes ads successful, then surely Sir Martin would have them running every WPP agency creative department?
Is this a joke…?
The truth is link testing doesn’t work for visual scripts. You need to explain what’s going on. It works for dialogue driven scripts where the images need no explaining.
Oh. And Unilever didn’t link test the man your man could smell like.
It is probably true that Unilever didn’t Link test ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’. That’s because Old Spice is a P&G brand.
The comment typifies the level of ignorance shown in these comments.
MB specifically says you DON’T need to show the brand in the first few seconds. (IPSOS says this; MB disagrees)
Guinness Surfer did not fail Link.
Neither did the Heineken Refreshes campaign.
And show me when MB has adjusted the scores post-hoc???? Just one example? What client would stand for that?
This thread is full of lies, smears and ignorance.
As for ther results of the study; the most telling result for me was that when you get a low Short Term Sales Likelihood score, there is around a 50% chance your sales will fall.
Essential to check on advertising agency with both pre-testing and tracking, there is so much rubbish advertising out there.