‘A Person like me’.
This is one of the key responses that Market Researchers look for in questionnaires administered to a test group in a Pre-ad test.
Pre ad tests are conducted by Advertising/Market Research companies to assess/pre-determine the effectiveness, usefulness & impact among other things of a certain newly created ad.
To do all of the above, the ad in question is shown to the test group masked as a clutter. A good example of a clutter that can be used to test the effectiveness of say, a Pril dish wash bar would be the following bunch of TV ads in random order:
Santoor sandalwood soap
Pond’s cold cream
Lakme nail polish
Pril dish wash bar
Wheel detergent powder
The target group is led to believe that the exercise is aimed at conducting TV/media studies to avoid prejudicing/biasing its responses.
Once the respondent has seen the clutter, she is taken through a questionnaire.
Among the scores of multiple choice questions, appears the one below
The said product would normally be used by ______________ (Tick all that apply)
- Working women
- Upper Class Women
- Educated Women
- Women like me
- Housewives
- Teenagers
- Fashionable women
- Middle class women
The researcher only cares if the response ‘Women like me’ is ticked; the other responses are dummy ones really.
If an ad is able to evoke/evince a response from a respondent to the effect that the advertised product or service is relevant/useful/used/essential to/by/for ‘people like me’, that means a great lot to the advertiser!
Phew, that has been a long introduction ….
So why exactly am I talking about Market Research here?
I had a person-like-me moment last week when the results of the civil service exams 2007 were announced. A friend who secured All India Rank 14 caused this.
This does two things to me:
