As one of the consequences of the challenging economic climate we're all experiencing right now, we've all been tasked with reevaluating the value of advertising - not just digital, but as a whole. Whether this manifests itself in terms of lower budgets allocated to CMOs, declining CPMs, or difficulties in attaining ROI, it is a subject that has triggered a whole lot of discussion lately. I've even seen this issue posed as bluntly as by asking "does advertising even work?" - complete with all the subtlety of a head-on collision on the freeway.
At the Microsoft Advertising Institute, we have primarily focused on user-level research as a means of "cracking this nut", so to speak, and determining ad effectiveness across a variety of areas. But often times anecdotal data can be just as powerful, so I offer this personal experience that I recently went through:
One evening last week I was heading home from work, and decided to join my wife and two young children at the local grocery store for an in-progress weekly restocking trip. We were almost finished as we passed through the very back of the store where the refrigerated goods are like juice, milk, cheese, etc. My daughter, who just turned four-years-old and knows her alphabet backwards and forwards but cannot yet read words, stopped us halfway through the aisle with an urgent demand: "Crush Cups! Can we get some Crush Cups? Pleeeeeease?" To which, of course, my wife and I both looked at each other for a moment, then replied "what the heck are Crunch Cups?" (a classic I-have-officially-become-my-parents moment, btw). My daughter kindly corrected us (they're Crush Cups), then pointed to the 6-pack of square-shaped yogurt cups on the shelf, to our amazement. You see, both of my kids are Yo-Go eaters (another type of kids yogurt that is very popular), and we had never seen or heard of Crush Cups before, but somehow our young daughter had, and she piped up with all the excitement of the kids in the commercials when she saw the boxes on the shelf.
I offer you the power of advertising, folks. Or at least for my test group - size 1 - of 4-year-old girls who can't yet read but watch their fair share of cartoons.
Until next time,
Esco
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