June 18, 2014
Advertising Still Works
Research With Kellogg, CBS Shows Fragmentation Hasn’t Weakened Effects
Steve forwarded this article to me (Left Brain) just yesterday. I was reading with baited breath to find the weakness in the study. I can’t. The truth is that long-term advertising is still one of the most effective means of marketing. As part of the marketing mix, advertising, or paid promotions, provides an invaluable asset to assuring brand recognition. Wait, invaluable? But that’s the problem…
While it is hard to track, long-term advertising has great value! According to the research, via the Ad Age article, “…the long-term effect (defined as more than a month) still exists, with total sales lifts ranging from 1.8 to 4.5 times the initial lift, said Leslie Wood, chief research officer of Nielsen Catalina.”
OK, so you say this study was based on Kellogg and CBS…a company with a massive advertising budget on a super hot network with some of the hottest shows on TV. Maybe, you question, this proves that massive TV advertising is what works. You might be right. The article also says, “Ms. Wood said NCS hopes to study a far larger number of brands to see if the long-term multipliers still hold up or whether different types of creative, categories, media and promotional dealing produce variations in long-term impact.”
But based on years of study, despite fragmentation, despite shortened attention spans, we know that long-term branding has tremendous benefits when paired with short-term promotional work. In my opinion, its that whole total is greater than its sum parts, something-or-other.
Tags: Advertising, theory