McGraw-Hill Research, through its Laboratory of Advertising Performance (LAP), has developed considerable information on the effectiveness of print advertising. The company designed the LAP to assist business publication advertisers and their agencies in making their advertising more effective, covering a variety of subjects to help solve advertising, selling, and marketing problems. The data for the LAP are culled from a wide variety of sources, a few of which are: advertising readership reports from interviews with thousands of readers of McGraw-Hill magazines; independent studies of industrial marketers and advertisers who cooperate with LAP; and special LAP surveys from confidential data released to McGraw-Hill by manufacturers.
Advertising in business publications enhances product association with the manufacturer
A concentrated advertising campaign of 24 pages over IS months in Electrical Construction and Maintenance magazine increased product awareness for uninterruptible power systems equipment and power regeneration equipment 101 percent and 67 percent respectively. Prior to the ad campaign, there was no advertising for over a year. The charts show advertising's significant impact on two products of a power conditioning equipment manufacturer.
Advertising communicates the exact product and benefit information, delivering a consistent message time after time. Further, as competitive products enter the marketplace, advertising helps to maintain and strengthen a specific product's visibility by informing, persuading, and reminding prospects about the product's benefits.
Larger advertisements attract greater reader attention
Larger ads draw greater attention to a four-color or black and white ad, according to a 1988 McGraw-Hill Research analysis of 884 ads appearing in the Industrial Technology Edition of Business Week. Findings show a consistent rise in Starch "Noted Scores" as size increases. ("Noted" represents the percentage of people interviewed who remembered seeing the advertisement in the issue being studied.) Specifically, four-color spreads attract more than twice as much attention as four-color, two-thirds page ads.
The two-thirds page noted scores are indexed at 100, one index for black-and-white and the other for four-color. Then, indices are calculated for one page and spread ads for both four-color and black and white.
13 repeat ads continue to draw inquiries with each insertion
The Mineral Panels Division of Manville Corporation ran the same full-page, four-color ad 13 times in Architectural Record between July 1986 and October 1987. Five times throughout the campaign, repeated insertions generated more inquiries than the initial insertion in July.
Further, throughout the advertising campaign, the same ad continued to draw inquiries for each repeated insertion. Production costs involved in creating a new ad were saved. McGraw-Hill Research kept records of inquiries received for each insertion. The number of inquiries generated from the initial insertion was indexed at 100, and indices were calculated for the number of inquiries pulled from each subsequent insertion. (See Fig. I).
Business-to-business advertisers increase usage of four-color advertising
For three decades, the use of four-color advertising has continued to rise among business-to-business advertisers. In 1987, the percent of four-color advertising pages in McGraw-Hill publications rose to nearly seven times what it was in 1964. Further, on the average, two-thirds of total ad pages appear in four-color, a substantial increase from 1981. (See Fig. 2).
No significant difference in advertising effectiveness between right- and left-hand page ads
Right- and left-hand page ads perform almost equally in achieving specific communications objectives, such as attracting attention, making the prospect aware of something not known before, causing action by suggesting solutions to problems, building preference by intensifying a positive feeling for the company and keeping customers sold.
A computer analysis of 1.394 ads from McGraw-Hill Research's Electrical Construction and Maintenance magazine readership database shows only a slight difference in effectiveness between right-hand left-hand page advertising.
The charts compare scores for 921 right-hand page ads and 473 left-hand page ads. The left-hand page ads are indexed at 100, and scores for the five advertising objectives are calculated for right-hand pages ads.
"Associated" and "Read Most" scores also increase with larger ads
The advantage of size is shown below utilizing indices of Starch "Noted," "Associated," and "Read Most" scores. ("Noted" represents the percentage of people interviewed who remembered seeing the advertisement in the issue being studied. "Associated" represents the percentage of people interviewed who not only "Noted" the advertisement, but also saw or read part of it which clearly indicated the brand or advertisement. "Read Most" represents the percentage of people interviewed who read half or more of the written material in the ad.)
Overall, spreads doubled the scores of two-thirds page ads in each category for both four-color and black and white. Thus, larger ads enhance the amount of exposure and readership of an advertisement.
The two-thirds page scores for "Noted," "Associated," and "Read Most" categories are indexed at 100 for both four-color and black and white ads. Then, indices are calculated for one page and spread ads.
1987 Starch Adnorms were calculated for the Business Week Industrial Technology Edition over a two-year study period. The studies were conducted among a representative sample of 150 readers of each issue by personal interviews. Data for each issue were collected the same week as the issue date. Readers were shown an issue page by page and asked whether they had seen or read any part of the advertisement.