In the old days, market research and pre-launch ad testing was incredibly time consuming and expensive. Only the largest advertisers could spend enough time and money fine-tuning their message with a pilot group before launching to the rest of the world.
Even then, few of them did it enough, or did it effectively. From the Edsel to New Coke, the business world is littered with failures that should have been caught before millions were spent on their launch.
Today, the Internet has made the testing of marketing messages and creative much more affordable. It has also enabled testing to occur with much quicker turnaround, speeding a company's ability to get campaigns and products to market.
The New York Times reports on a new breed of online advertising service providers who enable marketers to test everything about their online ads - font types, color types, messages, etc. - to optimize which variation generates the most click through and conversion. This is significantly affecting the role of creative agencies. Often what the creative "gut feel" might indicate is the best design does not test as well as a more bland or sterile design.
The question is, “how do we combine creative energy, which is a manual and sort of qualitative exercise, with the raw processing power of computing, which is all about quantitative data?” said Tim Hanlon, executive vice president of VivaKi Ventures, the investment unit of Publicis Groupe.“I think it’s clear that the traditional process of agencies is clearly not going to survive the digital era without significant changes to our approaches,” Mr. Hanlon said.
The left brain is horning in on the right brain in this case. You can foresee a scenario where an agency doesn't make its money on creative services, but on the reporting of which variation worked.
So how should a small or mid-sized organization balance the availability of testing vs. execution? Is it possible to test too much and slow down your speed to market? How much does an advertiser gain by slowing down and learning which creative is most effective before launching?
Here are a few recommendations:
- Err on the side of testing - In my experience, the vast majority of advertisers and marketers do not value pre-testing (or even ongoing measurement) nearly enough. It is doubtful that, given the pressures of "getting something out there" that you will ever test too much.
- Set a performance bar before you have to launch - The majority of marketers don't do enough testing because they are in a rush. Set aside time to plan the level of testing you will require for every campaign, then build it into the process before the next campaign needs launched. Choose your vendors, your process, your "go" levels of performance beforehand.
- Educate your executives - From the CEO to the CFO, your executive team needs to know that you recommend this higher level of discipline from marketing. This may take some executives aback who still see marketing more as a whim than a strategic investment. But long term, you will establish more business credibility and more than likely build up your reputation as an accountable, responsible leader. It also helps during budget crunches when you will need to justify your marketing budget and avoid slashes. Data-driven recommendations can help avoid a lot of dumb budget cuts.
- Take time to learn - Measurement, either pre or post, is meaningless unless you take time to digest what worked and what didn't and apply the learnings to the next campaign.
Marketing is still creative. But the more science and discipline are combined with creativity, the more fruit your marketing investments will yield.
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