• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 9, 2007

Affinity LLC, a research firm that studies the effectiveness of print and broadcast ads, plans to roll out a new quarterly series of syndicated studies ranking all direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads appearing in print and TV by effectiveness.

The rollout of the pharmaceutical ad service, called DTC Track, will be followed by similar services tracking all ads for automobiles, over-the-counter medication, travel and retail, also on a quarterly basis. The pharmaceutical DTC Track is expected to launch April 1. There is no set schedule for the rollout of the other planned services.

Robinson said Affinity will conduct a rolling series of surveys reaching over 20,000 consumers on a quarterly basis. Participants will be asked "if they saw the print campaign or TV campaign, and if they remember the brand."

Those who do are then asked a battery of questions, including whether they talked to a doctor about the medication, whether the ad led to a more favorable opinion of the brand, whether they saved the ad (in the case of print ads), and whether they recommended the product to someone.

According to Tom Robinson, Affinity's managing director, users will be able to sort the data in DTC Track reports in a variety of ways. Marketers will be able to figure out how a product ranks in the core measures that we track, he says, relative both to their own past performance, and their competitors' past and present performance. The data will be sorted by condition; for example, high cholesterol versus erectile dysfunction DTC ads, which will allow marketers to make comparisons within their competitive set.

DTC Track will also offer the option of customized question modules appended to the end of the surveys, so marketers can delve more deeply into issues of interest to them. Robinson suggested that these questions could be used to analyze the interaction between print, TV and online campaigns--an important issue for DTC ad campaigns, since TV ads often refer viewers to more detailed ads in consumer magazines or Web sites.