• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

`We look at advertising as a process'

Sankar Radhakrishnan

Lorenz C. Andersen, Managing Director of the London-based Buy Systems International (BSI) was recently in India to meet Indian clients and re-acquaint them with his company's services. BSI, which had its origins in Denmark, and later moved to London is i nto testing the effectiveness of communication, and operates in over 80 countries around the world.

Andersen himself has a long association with communication and marketing, an association that goes back to his family's retail chain in Denmark. Andersen, who is still a share holder in the family venture and the chairman of the company's board says that he learned a lot from `meeting the customer' at an early age. This also triggered his curiosity and he went on to study communication and market research in college, both in Denmark and later in the US.

On BSI

BSI is a company for developing techniques in the market research industry. We concentrate on developing tools to be used for communication, any kind of communication. We don't do the actual market research ourself. We are the developers and we then fran chise this knowhow to consortium members all over the world, such as Mode in India.

On the company's tools

Ad Choice, Choice, Choice Sort and Market Choice are BSI's tools. Of these, Market Choice is a new product. It is a forecasting and optimisation tool.

It is our firm belief that we do not want to make a big tool box of different types of tools. They must all focus on the same thing: Look into the value and effect of creativity, whether that creativity is linked to creativity in the positioning of the p roduct, to the advertising or what you should say about your product.

The different tools are supposed to be used in conjunction. For example, in advertising you start with the early ideas, screen out some, find those ideas which seem to have a potential, put them in a broader context and again optimise it, and eventually add on creativity and test the creativity and make sure that your advertising is optimal. We also have tools for the post testing, tracking area, where we focus on finding out whether what is creative, interesting, exciting and effective now, is the same , maybe 8-10 months down the line, or has it worn out.

On how Ad Choice is different

There are two very significant different ways as we do it. First of all, where most tools look at the advertising effect in partial steps based on single questions, we look at advertising as a process, and we don't care about answers to single questions. We look at response patterns over a number of questions. So, we monitor to what extent a person is affected. In communication the reality is that some are fully effective, some are partially effective and others little or not at all. The others tend to say effect or no effect, black or white. That's one thing.

The other thing is that we all say we are diagnostic. All other systems tend to look at what we call advertising playback memory, what people playback to you. We always found that it is only half the story, because what is really interesting is to look f or the driving forces in communication, not just the simple playback. You can easily communicate points without them having any effect whatsoever. And, that is really the learning process, and that is why we look at the playback from different groups dep ending on to what extent they were affected by the advertising. That is a very significant difference, and that is where the learning comes in. So, we may be more expensive to start with, but in the longer run it's a far cheaper system because its not en dless testing, it's a learning process and that means you will automatically be better and better.

On different driving forces behind communication across the world.

We often ask is it possible to use something which is in a way standardised across different cultures, because you would not expect Indians to respond to advertising the same way as people from Great Britain or Germany or Brazil. Correct. But, we do not set any specific premises for how you should evaluate the advertising. What we are looking at is some very basic steps through which every individual, every human who evaluates any kind of communication will go through. There is no difference between a G erman or Indian in terms of the first thing they will look at, which is `hey is that of any interest or relevance for me'. Any culture will do that.

So, the fundamental steps we have, they are universal. What you are getting out of the advertising is totally different in many countries. But, there we are using not our words, but the respondents words on location. We are asking them `what did you reme mber from the advertising, what did it mean to you,' and all these things. That's our base for making the diagnostics.

On Ad Choice in India

It's been working extremely well, also because we have extremely knowledgeable and sophisticated researchers where usually you are faced with people in this industry having worked there for only two, three, four years. We are here talking about people wh o have been in the business and have solid knowledge, and our methodology is a challenging tool because it's more a conceptual product than an fixed product. It takes a lot of your own research skills, market insight, and clearly, I think, that is the su ccess factor here in India.

On experiences unique to India

There is a tendency in Indian advertising to simulate your great reputation in the movie industry. And, that means quite often making a feature film. That often brings too many elements into the advertising, and it is certainly a golden rule in advertisi ng that you should build your advertising on one great, single idea and not try to confuse too much with too long stories.

Another thing is that India is not an easy country for a marketer or market researchers because you have so many different ethnic groups, social classes and so on, and their aspirations and reactions to advertising works on totally different premises.

On the market research (MR) practice in India

The interesting thing is that MR in India has evolved in technical terms. Now, computers are used. But, it has still remained true to its strong core, because MR is really not something the computer is doing for you. It's the thinking process. So, it sti ll has the discipline of the good old days, where thinking was put into the design, into the analysis and you didn't order endless tables, and were looking for what really was meaningful. Fundamentally, skills were here, they are still here, it's just ea sier now.

On Ad Choice's role in a scenario of agency fees being linked to brand performance

It could play a certain role in terms of evaluating the effect, but obviously it's the final market result that matters. There is a clear relationship between our ad effect measures and what's happening in the market. What I am a bit hesitant about is th at we don't want to act as the judge between agencies because we regard the client, agency and us as a working team, and really the way one should use this system is to explore whole new creative ideas instead of exploring them out there in the market pl ace using the consumer as guinea pigs. Try to test out your ideas in a small environment.

On adding new tools

It's certainly going to be expanded and it's already in the pipeline. New services, especially related to the new economy and the Internet. But, we won't go away from our basic idea that they all have to be rooted in a common idea and they have to be abl e to work together, because we see ourselves as experts in communication and advertising and whatever they involve. These tools will come to India as fast as they reach Germany or Holland.

Pic.: Lorenz C. Andersen, Managing Director, Buy Systems International.