Session 13 – Pretesting

This session focuses on how to pretest your messages once designed, whether done in-house or by an advertising agency.

At the end of this session, participants should be able to:

  • Understand why messages are pretested.
  • Define the objectives for pretesting messages.
  • Name various techniques used to posttest messages.

Pre-testing messages assures that they convey to your target audiences what you intended. Ask some questions of yourself and your target audience: Does this message encourage the behavior you want to promote? Is the call to action clear? Does the target audience understand what behavior is expected? Is the message repelling or attracting them to the behavior?

It is important to set a clear communication goal for the pre-testing process, particularly if occurring through an outside agency or hired subcontractor. Pre-testing helps you determine how well your objectives were met. You need to determine ahead of time who to interview and how to recruit. Your sample needs to be representative of your target audience, as well as one which has not been previously interviewed during your research. If your target or secondary audiences are segmented according to racial, geographic, or educational background, it is important that the pre-testing process represents that. This is not the time to substitute. You will also want to estimate the number and types of interviews to conduct. Will you pretest these messages through focus groups, individual interviews, or stopping people on the street? Afterwards, you need a system in place for reporting this information back to the creative or production team.

It is important to only have mockup or sample messages and not actual TV spots or radio commercials as you are working with the advertising agency or creative team. You will find it is very difficult, if not impossible to have an agency go back and make changes once the money has been spent on creating a final product. That illustrates why it is better to have a mockup board of what a TV commercial might look like, rather than the actual TV commercial. Although you want your target audience to see the message in the deliverable format, your objective for the pre-testing process is to see if your target audience recognizes the message is for them. They should understand the call to action and be able to tell you what it is they are being asked to do. Do they recognize the benefits and does the appeal work for them? In other words, does the message motivate or persuade them toward the behavior change?

It is also important to examine the tone and determine whether or not it is appropriate. Your focus groups, interviews, and quantitative data may tell you that the audience does not want to be scared into a behavior. Therefore, the tone of your message needs to reflect that sentiment. Also determine whether or not anything offended or annoyed them. Examine their attitudes towards the spokesperson. Did the target audience like the spokesperson and see that person as being similar to them? Did they fine the spokesperson believable? In the breastfeeding campaign, the original spokesperson was a model the advertising agency believed looked like a mother. The baby in the ad was also a model. Women watching the ad were very quick to point out that the woman did not look like she had just had a baby and that the baby did not look like a newborn. Therefore, the message of the ad was lost because the audience did not believe the spokesperson. It is equally important to test with secondary audiences, such as a teen mother’s parents, particularly to determine if anything is unacceptable to them. For example, if you have designed a television ad for a target audience of teens and the parents find it so objectionable that forbid them to watch the ad or turn the ad off, you will not be reaching your target audience.

Sometimes the message you are presenting is not delivered in such a way that people have ready access to it. That is, it is not a TV, radio, or billboard ad. It might be a pamphlet or brochure, so it is important to test these forms. There are any number of ways to do this, but one-on-one usually works best. Offer people a sample of brochures, including the one you have created and others that are available. Which one do they pick up from the table? Do they read your brochure? Can they read your brochure? It is equally important that literacy level be checked. Several instruments, such as a SMOG or a FOG test check reading and literacy levels. You might also want to do some on-the-spot testing. Place your brochures in a waiting room or a health area and watch people’s reaction to them. Are they keeping these brochures, putting them back, or throwing them in the trash? What magazines do they choose to read as they are in the waiting room? Are those the magazines you are going to be advertising in? Ask people what they remember after viewing the brochure or ad. Do they remember the key points you intended them to? Record the time and reaction of people looking at posters, brochures, and TV. Another way to perform message testing is to place a mock poster in an area where there are groups of people representative of your target audience. Record how much time they spend and what they said while looking at it, or if they just walked past the ad without it catching their eye.

In addition to the traditional mechanisms for testing messages, there are other data collection techniques that can be used. You might go to a central location such as a health department or laundromat and ask people to give their opinion about the desired behavior. Data collection does not have to be done face-to-face, although it is probably best to do so if the message or media is visual. On the other hand, an audio message can be done over the phone. Theater testing is another data collection technique. Depending upon your budget, you can either rent out a movie theater to bring in a group of people to watch the ad or get permission to show your ad as part of the ads that run before the movie. You can then interview people about their reactions before the movie begins. Be creative, there are many ways to access people to test your messages, whether you have a small or large budget. Lastly, no matter what technique you use, test comprehension. Make sure people understand the words and tone of your message. Remember, of most importance to pretesting is that your message conveys what you intended and that your target audience understands it is for them and what they are supposed to do.