The Advertised Mind

Copy testing

When selecting a pre-testing methodology, learning from The Advertised Mind and Millward Brown’s research on ‘emotion in advertising’ has lead to a series of issues that have implications for copy testing.

The chosen approach should:

• be based on a sound model of how advertising works
• yield an estimate of the impact rate that the advertisement will have in the media when aired
• give an indication of the likely attention paid to key elements within the ad, and the emotional responses that drive attention
• provide diagnostic feedback and not just a one number summary
• not include a clutter reel
• have a normative database against which individual results can be compared.

Millward Brown’s Link™ copy test has always included measures of emotional response to creative.

Metrics such as ‘enjoyment’, ‘engagement’, ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ are a fundamental part of the test, and speak to overall emotional response. In addition, the extensive battery of semi-qualitative open-ended questions reveal the way copy makes consumers feel.

However, to further enhance the depth of understanding of emotional response within the test, there have been new developments:

• New questions diagnose the different emotions that copy evokes in consumers. The emotions covered are based on a synthesis of psychological models and live testing around the world. They allow advertisers to see in detail if their copy is evoking the intended emotions, and which emotions will dominate take-out from the commercial.
• A new, non-verbal diagnostic has been introduced to clarify which elements of the narrative are generating different emotions, thus highlighting which creative elements are key to producing the intended emotional response.