Commentary

The ARF at 75: Championing the Role of Research in Advertising Effectiveness

"A new organization to be known as the Advertising Research Foundation was formed at a meeting of advertiser and agency executives held on February 11th at the Union League Club in New York." That's how a press release announced the formation of the ARF by the Association of National Advertisers and American Association of Advertising Agencies 75 years ago.

At the time -- in 1936 -- cooperation between advertisers and agencies was unusual. But as the advertising industry expanded, the ANA and 4As recognized the need for a new entity exclusively dedicated to "the furtherance, through research, of the science of advertising and marketing."

In the early years, the ARF functioned largely as a watchdog organization, focused on media studies of newspapers, magazines and farm publications. However, the ARF gradually realized its impact could be far greater as a more inclusive organization. In 1951, it welcomed media companies as members and expanded its research focus to include (in the words of its chairman) "copy, art, human motivation, techniques and habit patterns."

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The growing impact of TV created a huge need for research to assess the advertising implications of broadcasting. The ARF took the lead in systematically documenting how many households owned TV sets and recommending standards for radio and TV program audience size measurements.

In 1955, the ARF held is first annual conference for marketing executives, and in 1960, it launched the Journal of Advertising Research, the first publication devoted exclusively to advertising and marketing research.

In 1967, the ARF again broadened its membership base, admitting research companies. Today, the organization represents more than 400 marketers, advertising agencies, media companies, research firms, associations and educational institutions throughout the U.S. and internationally. It has become a trusted forum to create and share powerful insights regarding the most complex and challenging issues facing the marketing industry.

Over the years, the ARF was responsible for numerous advertising research firsts:

•First to design syndicated multi-magazine and multi-newspaper audience studies

•First to establish standard procedures for fieldwork verification

•First to quantitatively test the impact of public service advertising

•First to use electronic checkout counter scanning equipment for advertising research

Further, research published by the Journal of Advertising Research, significantly enhanced the industry's understanding of how advertising works.

As we celebrate two anniversaries -- the ARF's 75th and the Journal of Advertising Research's 50th -- here are highlights from seven seminal JAR articles that advanced the practice of advertising and marketing in dramatic ways: 1. Brand equity. In 1990, Peter H. Farquhar published an incisive model of brand-equity management. His article -- the most cited of JAR studies --identified three stages of brand management: introduction, in which a brand image is created for a quality product; elaboration, in which brand accessibility --ease of remembering and direct experience -- are fostered; and brand fortification, in which brand equity is leveraged via broader distribution and extension to closely related target categories. The model remains highly relevant and often cited today.

2. Globalization. A 1974 article by David A. Ricks, Jeffrey S. Arpan and Marilyn Y. Fu crystallized essential insights about successful global marketing efforts: the need to communicate basic human needs in culturally sensitive ways. The article highlighted actual blunders by companies that assumed their domestic success could be directly replicated internationally, and it no doubt prevented many marketing executives from pursuing costly, ill-conceived global strategies.

3. The Internet. In 1996, the JAR published its first article about the Web. Authors Pierre Berthon, Leland F. Pitt and Richard T. Watson described a process and model to help marketers assess the efficiency of their Web sites. It employed data-based productivity measures that could help justify advertising and marketing investments in a Web presence. Today, 15 years later, marketers continue to build upon the analytical foundation the authors articulated.

4. Information Access. In 1984 The Information Age was a catchphrase but far from a reality. In a circumspect article, John A. Ledingham presented a vision of a wired nation, but pointed out that consumer predispositions, based on empirical support, indicated "an information society is a charming picture: more charming than factual." Indeed it took more than 20 years for smartphones to emerge and be adopted, making information access truly ubiquitous.

5. In-store Response. As in-store scanner data became available, researchers had an invaluable resource to help answer important questions regarding advertising and sales. In 1996, John Philip Jones and Margaret H. Blair published research indicating that increasing advertising weight alone was not sufficient to increase advertising's impact on sales. Their research further found that a commercial's selling power declined with airing, and that it was possible to determine sales-effective advertising before airing if the proper measurement tools were used. Their insights, some of which still stand today, caused many marketers to rethink their advertising and sales strategies.

6. Television. TV and print were the dominant forms of advertising in 1971 when Herbert E. Krugman published his research, which measured brain waves (EEG) in respondents exposed to both types of commercial messages. His findings indicated that with television commercials, subjects were passive, experience-oriented recipients of advertising; whereas with print ads, they were more active, message-oriented participants. While the research didn't suggest which type of advertising was better, it did begin to focus marketers on how to design the optimal type of advertisement for each medium.

7. Measurement. In 1984 Michael J. Naples compellingly articulated an inherent weakness in advertising metrics of that era: They did not measure consumer response and therefore, were ineffective in guiding advertising strategy. Metrics such as GRPs and CPMs, he pointed out, do not reveal who is watching a commercial or the size of an audience for a commercial except by inference. He argued for effectiveness measures that answered critical questions like these: "What is the optimum budget level?" "What is the value of repeated exposure to an advertising message?" What are the optimum media mixes?" The advertising profession has come a long way in addressing these important issues, but marketers continue to wrestle with them every day.

These seminal studies, and many others, have helped marketers make smarter decisions about how to deploy their resources and connect with consumers. As the marketing landscape rapidly changes, the role of high quality, innovative research will become even more essential.

The ARF is helping the marketing community explore innovative uses of census data, assess neuroscience as it applies to media and advertising response, and better understand consumer behavior across an ever-expanding media environment. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, we are proud that research has played such an important role in the development of the marketing profession. But we are even more enthusiastic about the role it will play in the rapidly changing, technology-powered marketing industry of the future.

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