dolution

Testing TV Commercials in Prefinished Form

An advertising agency works from a creative brief that has been developed in conjunction with the client-side brand management team. As described in Chapter 10, the creative brief is a document designed to inspire copywriters by channeling their creative efforts toward a solution that will serve the interests of the client. The creative brief also represents an informal pact between client and advertising agency that secures agreement on what an advertising campaign is intended to accomplish. Among other features, the creative brief identifies the brand positioning, the overall marketing strategy for the brand, and a statement of the brand’s key value proposition. Working from this brief, copywriters and other agency personnel develop two or more creative executions that are considered suitable for accomplishing agreed-on objectives. However, rather than immediately producing a finished commercial, which can easily cost $500,000 or more, it is practical and cost-efficient to test the advertising concept in a prefinished form. There are five prefinished forms that are tested in television commercial research. The form furthest removed from a finished commercial is the storyboard, whereas the other forms become more like a produced commercial as we progress from the animatics form to the liveamatics version. Each is briefly described here.

1. Storyboards: This prefinished version presents a series of key visual frames and the corresponding script of the audio. The sequence of visual frames is literally pasted on a poster-type board, hence the storyboard name. The storyboard version, unlike a dynamic commercial, is completely static. Drawings of people replace the actual actors or celebrities who ultimately will appear in the finished commercial. Testing of storyboards often is done in focus group settings with small groups of consumers.

2. Animatics: This is a film or videotape of a sequence of drawings with simultaneous playing of audio to represent a proposed commercial. The animatic version maintains the primitive nature of the storyboard but incorporates an element of dynamism by videotaping the sequence of drawings.

3. Photomatics: A sequence of photographs is filmed or videotaped and accompanied by audio to represent a proposed commercial. This version is increasingly realistic because photographs of real people are displayed rather than, as in the case of storyboards or animatics, merely shown as drawn renderings of real people.

4. Ripomatics (also called steal-o-matics): Footage is taken from existing commercials and spliced together to represent the proposed commercial. Hence, the ripomatics version captures the realism of an actual commercial but does not entail the huge expense associated with filming an original commercial.

5. Liveamatics: This prefinished version entails filming or videotaping live talent to represent the proposed commercial. This version is the closest to a finished commercial, but it does not fully represent the actual settings or talent that will be used in the finished commercial.