The purpose of this study was to explore consumer and marketing industry attitudes toward advertising today with the aim of producing a series of articles for Marketing Magazine that would both highlight qualitative research techniques and give the industry a glimpse of how it is viewed by the general public.

Purpose and Background

By including both consumer segments and industry professionals in our research, we hoped to discern some indication as to whether broader public views of advertising are shared or recognized by the industry.

Session Outline

In total, Plunkett Communications conducted seven mini-focus groups at the downtown Toronto focus group facilities of Consumer Vision between April 3 and 22. Each session lasted approximately two hours.

The groups represented a range of consumer and industry constituencies:

Industry Professionals:

• Clients representing a wide variety of categories and spending levels;
• Ad agency personnel, representing a variety of disciplines including creative, account management and planning.

Consumers:

• Females 13 and 14 years
• Males 16 and 17 years
• Males 25 to 49 years
• Females 25 to 49 years

Probing techniques were employed to help provide diagnostic information about why some of these views and beliefs are held. Initially, there was a general discussion about advertising and how respondents felt about it. From there, these kind of broad questions were posed: What are the general attitudes toward advertising in 1998? How have attitudes changed in the past 10 to 15 years? Is advertising more credible in 1998? Why? How do advertisers and agencies see themselves? Why? How do consumers see advertising and advertising professionals in 1998? Why?

All respondents were asked to complete a "Homework Assignment" prior to the session, and bring two examples of advertising campaigns they would like to discuss--one a favorite campaign, the other a campaign they would consider to be effective.

As well, about two thirds of the way through each session all participants were asked to take part in a photo-sort exercise to delve into their feelings about the industry.

Highlights

A caveat
As is always the case with qualitative research, it must be noted that the following finding highlights are based on the comments of a small number of participants--all from the Toronto area--and must therefore be considered hypotheses only and be interpreted with caution.

The Consumer Is Increasingly Marketing Savvy
Industry professionals, more and more, believe that they need to gain an understanding of their consumer today and respect their "truths." Today's consumer--especially the teens we interviewed--are able to comfortably and accurately use such terms as "target market," "strategy," "marketing" or "brand message" when discussing advertising.

Through the looking glass: Marketing staff look on during a focus group with teenage girls, one of four conducted with average consumers during April

Consumers are aware that they are bombarded with messages at every turn. They are somewhat bothered by this bombardment, but not outraged. They fully understand that advertising helps offset the cost of their media and entertainment content and programming. They have the feeling that they can strain out what they feel is manipulation, but at the same time, they applaud what they consider to be good advertising.

Consumers are generally less likely to claim that advertising doesn't affect them than was the case 10 or 15 years ago, and they feel they can choose what to believe and what not to embrace.

Consumers want to be treated as intelligent and knowledgeable. But they are also interested in understanding more about particular companies from a variety of perspectives, and often cite publicity about companies which have demonstrated unethical practices--especially if these practices relate to products they themselves use. Teens in particular, through the Internet, the news media and word-of-mouth with friends, are prepared to debate such issues.

Consumers did express a degree of cynicism about advertising. However, today's cynicism is more likely to be a questioning process or an analytical one rather than the fear of manipulation seen in the 1970s debates about subliminal messages. There was a general acceptance that while advertisers would certainly want to show their product or service in the most positive light, there would be checks and balances within society to ensure as much honesty as possible--both formal through regulatory bodies (the CRTC was mentioned in one session) and informal in the sense that consumers, through their spending choices, would reward or punish advertisers who appealed to them or offended them.

The industry professionals we interviewed recognize the sophistication of the consumer and know they need a keen understanding of their target audience. There is, however, often debate as to how this understanding is developed, and at what point of the development process it needs to take place.

Choices of favorite advertising were similar among professionals and consumers
Respondents were asked to think about advertising campaigns before the sessions, and be prepared to talk about one favorite and one effective campaign or execution (although sometimes the favorite and the effective advertising were the same).

The choices were very consistent among all participants, with consumers and advertising/marketing professionals frequently choosing the same examples to fit these criteria.

Ads were frequently praised for: Acknowledging and respecting the intelligence of the consumer; Tapping a resonating chord--"getting to our collective psyche"; Being humorous; Tapping into human relationships and emotion; Expressing a simple truth; Illustrating a recognized dream; Employing animals to convey various human conditions.

(For details on some of the ads selected, see "Doing their home work.")

Advertising is viewed as an exciting industry by both consumers and industry professionals
While there was a perception among consumers that advertisers are a bit slick, by and large, both consumers and industry professionals envisioned advertising as an exciting profession populated by generally honest and bright people. The industry was seen as attracting intelligent, creative and dynamic people who have to be in tune with today's consumer, and the world as it evolves, in order to bring relevant and interesting messages to the public.

To gain more insight into this whole area of the image of the industry, we asked all participants to take part in a photo-sort exercise. The images selected, and the respondents' reasons for doing so, were markedly consistent across all the groups, although there were some nuances. (The details of the process and findings are described in "The photo sort.")

Industry professionals are concerned about the challenges of appealing to an increasingly savvy consumer and getting noticed in an increasingly complex media environment.
Clients noted that breaking out of the clutter is increasingly more difficult and scary for them--with advertisements "even being found in washrooms." Media habits are seen as changing extremely rapidly and it is hard to keep pace. The need for full brand development is one requiring much more attention and clarity of impressions, based on so many marketing tools now available. Ultimately the goal is seen as having as many ways as possible to ensure that consumers feel good about the company.

Agency personnel felt that the advertising business has become much more sophisticated in terms of media planning, understanding the mind set of the consumer, and being profoundly aware of the "culture" of the target audience. Now that the budgetary constraints of the past recession have abated somewhat, it was felt the industry needs to refocus attention on hiring and training tomorrow's professionals. There was also a belief that the skill set must shift to be able to deal with the ever more sophisticated consumer.

Clients and agency personnel alike recognized the benefits of developing a full partnership with one another, rather than having the strictly defined supplier/buyer relationship which existed in decades past.

Clients continue to express the need for agency people to have a greater understanding of their needs and the world in which they operate. Budget pressure may be easing a little, but not without the effects of the recession of the early '90s leaving its mark after the free-wheeling '80s. The recession taught the industry that the concept of accountability is going to continue to grow, and the whole area is thought to be approached differently than five years ago.