Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know the biggest night in American sports just happened. Millions tuned in worldwide, not just for the game itself, but also for the spectacle that is the Super Bowl Halftime Show (Kendrick Lamar brought the house down!) and, of course, the legendary commercials. Whether you’re an NFL fanatic, a halftime show enthusiast, or just enjoy any excuse for a Sunday gathering, you were exposed to some of the most talked-about ads of the year (did you catch Kanye’s bizarre dental reveal?). Super Bowl ads command eye-watering price tags – upwards of $7 million for a mere 30 second spot. At that cost, getting it right isn’t just important, it’s essential. So, how do brands ensure their multi-million-dollar gamble pays off? We sat down with our resident ad-testing expert, Hugo Maguire, to learn how we test ad campaigns here at Tapestry and help brands create advertising that truly connects.
What is ad testing?
Ad testing is the process of understanding and improving an ad’s effectiveness by measuring its impact on consumers before, during and after launch. Generally, it measures the effectiveness of an ad against key factors including the cognitive and emotional response, message clarity, brand recall and likelihood to drive action.
What sort of ad testing do we do?
At Tapestry, we are experts in ad testing and regularly test ad creative across all formats including video, print and audio. We know that measuring the response to an ad is complex, and single questions (such as ad affinity) can often be too simplistic. Work by Les Binet & Peter Field has shown that ads which evoke an emotional response have the most impact for a brand in the long-term.
Therefore, one of our key tools for ad testing is The CEP TestTM , a proprietary analysis which measures the emotional response of the audience to a piece of advertising. It was developed by Dr Robert Heath (author of The Hidden Power of Advertising and Seducing the Subconscious) and has been used to evaluate more than 6,000 ads in the UK, US and other markets. Alongside The CEP TestTM, we often work with semioticians to help explain why an ad performs the way it does.
Depending on the ad (and campaign), we may also recommend including additional methodologies such as Biometrics (Galvanic Skin Response), Dial Testing, Distracted Exposure, Opportunity To See Probabilistic Modelling (OTS) or Pixel Tracking among others to fully understand the effectiveness of your ad.
Why should brands be testing their ads?
A well-tested ad isn’t just creative, it’s a strategic investment that minimises risk, maximises impact, and turns attention into action. Ad testing ensures that your ad will deliver a clear message to your target audience while also resonating on that all important emotional level. Initial insights from System1 on this year’s Super Bowl ads show that while consumers rated the ads highly for affinity, 1 in 5 viewers were unable to correctly recall the brand behind the ads. A strong creative test can identify how to get the balance right between branding (and brand recall) and building the emotional connection with consumers. It’s a journey we cherish investigating.
To find out more about how our approach to ad testing and optimising brand communications. , or to test some ads of your own, please get in contact with Hugo Maguire.