LAUNCHINGCREATIVE EXCELLENCE

OUR QUALITATIVE SPARK

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOUR CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS

SPACE AGENCIES ALWAYS CARRY OUT A FLIGHT READINESS REVIEW BEFORE TAKE OFFShould you launch your creative without carrying out those critical checks?

Understanding how people interpret and make sense of communications is absolutely critical to successful brand development. Great communications build and reinforce positive brand memories and capture attention to disrupt or challenge.

Investing in understanding the brand impact, message take outs and potential to capture attention at an early stage of creative development is financially prudent and can save blood, sweat and tears in the long term.

Qualitative research can be incredibly valuable in understanding how people perceive creative content and why. Importantly it allows us to explore consumers’ spontaneous dialogue and physical and emotive responses to creative.

There are many different routes into qualitative creative testing and often a combination of approaches delivers the richest and most useful outputs.

BENEFITS OF QUAL CREATIVE COMMS TESTING

Put simply...

RESEARCH THAT SPARKS GREAT COMMS

RESEARCH AT BIG IDEA STAGE

AT COMMS IDEA STAGE

AT EXECUTION STAGE

AND IN MARKET

Does the idea represent a credible, resonant and clear connection back to the brand?

Is it a strong foundation for all communication platforms and campaigns?

How does the Big Idea translate into communication ideas - for different platforms, channels and audiences?

Which communication idea best brings the Big Idea to life?

How does the execution fulfil its objectives?

What does this mean for media plans?

How does the execution perform in the real world?

How does this feed into current and future campaign learnings?

BigIdea

Inmarket

Comms.idea

Execution

Asking the right question, at the right time

Stages of Creative Development

WHAT WE DO:Disruptive consumer led thinking Fuelling powerful creative

Show in context as far as it is possible – e.g. using environment templates to simulate creative in situ (e.g. show OOH as it would look in real life by sitting at a bus stop, or a digital banner on Facebook).

Always go beyond face value: don’t just ask consumers how they are feeling, observe their response. Body language and gestures can offer clues that are just as powerful as responses from direct probing.

Elicit both ‘hot’ (instinctive, emotive, System 1) and cold (considered, thought through, System 2) responses to capture consumers’ holistic perspective.

KEEP IT REAL

MOVE BEYOND FACE VALUE

HOT AND COLD

IPSOS THINKING:

We know

powerful creative

assets are…

Simple to understand

Well-branded

Consistently use and reinforce brand iconography

Connect with the audience’s values

Employ high quality emotionally powerful creative

In order to …

Brandrelationship

Purchase consideration

Cut through the media environment, gaining attention for the brand

Building brand desire

+

TAKE ONE SMALL STEP WITH IPSOS

THE IPSOS OFFERWe recommend the best approach dependent on your needs and stage of creative development

Overnight qual Creative groups

Adlabs

Communities

Semiotics & cultural

intelligence

Ad Safaris

Gogglebox

Need SPEED

Need IN CONTEXT

Need DEPTH

Need REAL LIFE

CREATIVE GROUPS

In depth exploration of creative across all stages of development.

Creative agency and stakeholders can view in the moment.

Group dynamic and interactive responses.

Captures verbal and non-verbal responses.

Can adapt approach/stimuli explored between or during group sessions.

Group sessions of 6-8 consumers typically held at a viewing facility.

Ability and time to generate imagery, associations, stories and use projective techniques.

Can be incorporated into an Adlab – fast and robust quant measurement (offline or online), partnered with exploratory qualitative.

Tailored pending objectives; but some commonalities.

Session captures spontaneous (System 1, Hot) responses and (System 2, Cold) responses to stimuli using projective techniques.

Stimuli rotated across groups before comparison and ranking.

Ability to dress the walls for advertising gallery activities.

Explore individual responses, prior to group discussion.

NEED DEPTH

Provides a quick qualitative steer to optimise creative while gaining some feedback on the ‘why’ behind reactions.

Swift timings possible - from kick off to reporting in 5 days (depending on complexity of recruitment criteria).

Perfect when there are challenging timelines that other qualitative methodologies cannot meet.

Less appplicable for fundamental understanding, exploratory research or strategic questions.

Online forum, where participants provide in-the-moment feedback over the course of 24 hours.

From 5 day turnaround from brief to debrief.

Strategic reporting delivered the day after fieldwork.

60 recruited for 30 completes.

1- 5 stimuli included.

Up to 5 screening criteria e.g. demographics, product usage.

Streamlined screening questions, discussion guides, fieldwork and reporting.

Toolkit of mark up highlighter tool, video dial test and discussion forum can be utilised in Overnight qual approach.

OVERNIGHT QUAL

NEED SPEED

WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH

COST COSTSIMPLICITY SIMPLICITYSPEED SPEEDSUBSTANCE SUBSTANCE

SEMIOTICS / CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

Provides fundamental cultural insights that can be used to inform future creative.

Helps explain consumer opinions and behaviours which they often struggle to articulate.

Flexibility – stand-alone or to complement other methods.

Timely – non consumer facing allows for flexibility with timelines.

Draws upon deeper cultural principles to explain how groups think and perceive the world.

Breaks down all visuals and language into its components and “decodes” them - connecting them to long-held cultural beliefs, rituals, traditions, tropes and archetypes and their current associations.

Used to explore and steer different creative assets.

Scope is decided upon with client to develop a set of stimuli to establish breadth of the analysis (which categories, brands & their language/visuals).

Semiotician or cultural analyst conducts in-depth analysis of stimulus to come up with broader cultural themes around topic of interest.

Results create foundational insights that can be used for creative development and beyond.

NEED CONTEXTCOMMUNITIES

Communities foster comfortable environments where members speak candidly and openly, leading to in-depth consumer understanding of creative stimuli.

Consumers respond in their own time and in their own environment which permits a more considered and natural response as reactions can develop over time.

Fits well with an iterative approach - fieldwork over multiple days can allow refining of stimuli.

Focus on individual responses but opportunity for group interaction.

Ability to connect with consumers across wider geographic areas.

Communities can be designed to meet the specific research objectives and stimuli that needs to be included:

Instant: 2-10 days, (e.g. testing of different executions).

Pop-Up: 10 days – 5 months (e.g. campaign evaluation of all assets).

Ongoing: 6+ months (e.g. different waves of an ongoing campaign).

Clients have 24/7 real time community access to review discussions and activities to gain an immediate pulse on the tone and direction of community input.

Engage consumers with a variety of tools to elicit reactions to stimuli including marker boards, video dial test, blogs and video diaries, voting etc..

Allows for rotation of stimuli and capture of Hot and Cold responses to stimuli.

NEED SPEED

WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH

COST SIMPLICITY SPEED SUBSTANCE COST SIMPLICITY SPEED SUBSTANCE

GOGGLEBOX

Illustrates and brings tolife consumer opinions towards creative in a visually engaging way.

Typically used to complement other qualitative or quantitative methodologies.

A video output capturing participants’ natural reactions to ads in a ‘Gogglebox’ style.

Filmed in participants’ homes with a professional videographer.

Typically test up to 8 ads in a 2 hour session.

Scope can be defined based on client objectives but typically we run 3 x 2 hour in-home video sessions.

No pre-tasking of consumers – seek unbiased reactions to each ad.

Captures natural reactions followed by some light probing on key objectives.

Professionally recorded and edited for a high quality output.

NEED IN REAL LIFEADSAFARIS

Creative is live and consumer understanding is sought to explore impact of assets as they are encountered in real life.

Fits well when assets to evaluate are logistically ‘close’ to compare – ie OOH can travel from one site to another.

Ability to explore various channels.

One on one individual safaris where consumers travel to various sites/spaces exploring assets as they are encountered.

Length of interview 1-2 hours depending on stimuli.

Potential to combine eye-tracking data to deliver another layer of detail on where eyes are drawn, hot spots, etc.

Fits well with OOH, print and TV.

No pre-tasking of consumers – seek unbiased reactions to each asset.

Safari can take place in home, out of home or in viewing facility – or a combination of these.

After exposure to individual assets, comparison and optimisation of all stimuli.

NEED IN REAL LIFE

WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH WHY USE IT? WHAT IS IT? APPROACH

COST COSTSIMPLICITY SIMPLICITYSPEED SPEEDSUBSTANCE SUBSTANCE

CASE STUDIES

A vaping brand sought direction on an upcoming campaign. We conducted a 2-week community drip feeding campaign assets and semiotic analysis of brand creative assets and competitors.

Key themes and direction to optimise campaign including assets to prioritise/drop and how this feeds into the overall brand narrative. Client praised the clear direction and depth of insight.

Off the back of an on-going quant study, a major fast food company wanted to bring to life consumer opinion of their ads within their campaign. We conducted a Gogglebox study with three of their target audience groups.

Delivered real life spontaneous reactions to each execution and impact on the brand from their target audience. The videos provide an output which lives on and have been used in numerous presentations by the client.

1. 2.A global petcare brand had an aggressive one week timeline for feedback on three routes and needed granularity on which execution had the most potential. We employed an Overnight Qual approach to explore each route.

A clear understanding of the impact of each execution and the effect on the brand. The client was impressed with the depth of detail and professionalism they received in such a short timeframe.

3.

BLAST OFF:HOW WE’VE HELPED CLIENTS LAUNCH POWERFUL CREATIVE

SITUATION SITUATIONSITUATION

OUTCOME OUTCOMEOUTCOME

Natalie is a passionate Qualitative Director who is seasoned at working at all stages of creative development and has partnered with many clients and creative agencies to fuel effective creative outputs and understand the brand impact. She has a strong interest in branding, new techniques, and has been working in a qualitative specialism with Ipsos MORI since 2009. Prior to Ipsos she resided in New Zealand where she began her qualitative career. She hasn’t looked back since.

Natalie KearseNatalie.Kearse@ipsos.com +44(0)7554 402 783

Hanna has extensive expertise in brands and brand development research both agency and clientside. Hanna has an intuitive feel for the way brands are understood, grounded in a lifelong interest in cultural studies. In her role at Ipsos MORI Hanna is a senior member of the qual team driving thinking and innovation in this area. Hanna’s particular value is in infusing, into all the research she undertakes, a deep understanding of the wider socio-economic and cultural landscape.

Hanna ChalmersHanna.Chalmers@ipsos.com +44(0)7774 283 562

FOR MORE INFORMATIONPlease contact our brand and comms experts

ABOUT IPSOS MORI

Ipsos MORI, part of the Ipsos group, is one of the UK’s largest and most innovative research agencies, working for a wide range of global businesses, the FTSE100 and many government departments and public bodies.

We are passionately curious about people, markets, brands and society. We deliver information and analysis that makes our complex world easier and faster to navigate and inspires our clients to make smarter decisions.