Attitude change tests

Attitude change tests
There are a number of varieties of attitude change tests but the simple outline is one of testing the respondent’s brand preference before and after viewing an advert.

This can be done by bringing in a large group of people to watch the advert in a controlled environment or by telephoning people at home and recruiting them to watch a specific programme which will include the advert in the programme’s break.

Naturally, those recruited must match the advertiser’s targeted audience group - the client won’t be too bothered about the reaction of their advert for car oil from someone who doesn’t own a car. This can become a limiting factor for the test, as some target audiences are very small. So it can become very difficult to recruit a large enough group to make the test statistically worthwhile in some cases.

Another problem is that when used for a well-known brand the degree of change seen is usually small, which makes them statistically less reliable than large changes. Unfortunately, the best known brands tend to use advertising very strongly which means that the attitude change test is of least value to the very people who need it most.