A Quick Guide for Research in an Interactive World
Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, November 14th, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: Interactive Advertising, new media, research
Research in advertising has been a praised tool for quite some time. David Ogilvy, the promoter of advertising research always said “Look before you leap”. How else would you know where to place your advertising, how to do it and where to look for results?
With Ogilvy dead in 1999 and traditional research methods proving rather inefficient online we should look for new ways of doing research for interactive advertising.
Research in the Interactive World
Research provides answers. Answers for your following online campaign, stats on users behavior, your expected conversion rate, needed budget and others.
These answers are harder to find online because the questions are a little (ok, a lot) different from conventional media. Back in the day the questions you had to answer to were ” Who ? (Spokesperson), Says What ? (Advertising Message), To Whom ? (Target Audience), How ? (Which Media Channel), With What Effect ? (Desired Outcome) ” (source).
These simple questions followed a simple rule: The advertiser sends a message which is received (or not) by the audience, through some kind of media and evaluates his results after. Times have changed and the process of sending messages has turned to dialogue , where people want to stay in touch constantly with their favorite brands.
Once upon a time brands were the all mighty companies imposing trends by mass communication tools like TV, Radio and Print. Along came the Internet, the new media, and everything changed. People were interacting with each other and wanted to do that with brands too. Companies had to give in and start talking rather than shouting.
Nowadays the trend is picking momentum off line too as customers demand better interaction. Mobile marketing helped this and I am sure the future holds other means of helping users interact.
So you see research, as a concept, has to change. It has to evolve. We have to follow conversations rather than messages. We have to understand people and their lives rather than “demographics”. We have to understand tribes, rather than opinion leaders.
Ask the right questions to get the right answers.
Research is based on questions. The best answers come from the best listeners, asking the right questions.
Here are a few questions you should take into account next time you will be doing interactive advertising research:
- Who is the person you’re talking to and who are his or her friends?
- How do you keep track of your conversation with your tribe ? (find more on the subject here)
- What makes you special ?
- Does your brand fit in the tribe you are talking to ?
- Where will your followers answers go to ?
- Is your conversation pleasant? Are people listening to your marketing? Do they trust you ?
- What are your target’s interests ?
These questions are the start to a clear view of where you stand. This is what you should know about your audience in order to communicate better, to receive better results and understand the market you are in.
The world is changing. So is Research.
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