The Advantage Study
Methodology
The Advantage Study is conducted by CATI telephone interviewing among a sample size of 350 per wave (200 magazine cell and 150 control). Magazine cells are defined as customers exposed to the actual magazine. This will include those who have either been mailed the magazine or picked it up in-store or at another location. Millward Brown use random dial or Experian lists to pick up customer readers who are not on company supplied lists or where no company supplied lists are available.
Control cells are defined as customers who are not exposed to the magazine. In cases where the customer base is broad, this group will be customers who have not been exposed to the actual magazine. Where the customer group is narrow (eg. purchasers of a specific luxury brand) they will not necessarily be customers because of the difficulties in identifying these niche groups.
The magazine and control cells will be matched by loose (to within 10%) age (two breaks) and sex. However, it will not be cost effective to impose quotas on more niche samples
Computer Aided Web Interviewing (CAWI) will be used to provide detailed diagnostics.
The number of waves of research conducted across the year will be in relation to the frequency of the title and available budget. For example a monthly title may wish to conduct four waves per annum and a quarterly title only two.
Eliminating research bias
The magazine and control cells are matched in terms of their relationship with the brand through question design.
Control cell samples are also customers of the brand otherwise the results for key questions on the survey will be biased in favour of the magazine cells.
In some cases, the magazine cell will include top tier or more loyal customers and this will be accommodated in the survey design.
Non-control group data
Where there is no control group sample available, sample lists will be bought for people who are likely to be customers. It is anticipated that these will fall out at a 50/50 customer to non-customer ratio
In lower penetration control cells the respondents will not necessarily be customers and the control cell will just be matched to customer demographic profile.
Data supply
Lists are supplied by the client to Millward Brown in electronic format.
Data protection
In order to comply with the Data Protection Act, each client has confirmed that the customers on lists have given their permission for their details to be passed onto a third party.
Logistics
Titles are surveyed within two to three weeks from the mailing date to ensure consistency of recall.
Content of Questionnaire
- Magazine recall
- Readership levels (amount and time spent reading)
- Brand awareness (client brand and competitors)
- Brand relationship
- Brand image statements (three client specific, six in total)
- Advertising awareness (TV, cinema, radio, etc )
- Perception of the magazine
- Claimed response levels
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Region location (by TV area)
- Age/presence of children
Accounting for mailing distribution
Although the majority of customer magazines are mailed to customers, some are distributed in-store or via other locations.
The research design takes this into account by structuring respondent recruitment and enables all the above groups to be recruited into the test cell.
Do you recall seeing any of the following magazines recently. You may have received them in the post, at a store or somewhere else. By recently I mean in the last <<two weeks> or so?
Accounting for print run
Some clients vary their print run depending on the marketing objectives and how the customer group is defined. Whether the customer receives the magazine on all print runs or just a sub-set of them, they will still be important to the sample. The key to understanding the effect will be to code each customer in terms of their frequency of receiving the magazine by either: asking respondents how frequently they receive the magazine or matching the respondent to the client's own data frequency of mailing.
Additional Diagnostics
Should a client request information on the recall of third party advertising the publishing agency can make an advertisement or other stimulus material available either via a URL link to be accessed during the telephone interview or sent by email. The respondent would then be asked a series of recognition and diagnostic questions to assess how well the material had performed. Findings can then be validated against Millward Brown's research studies for other advertising channels. This can provide an insight into aspects of the creative and indicate what had worked well for the advertiser.
