When the diagnosis is wrong

Last week I had gone for a few consumer home visits with a client.

The client wanted to do an ad clinic with them. Getting to understand how they’ve received our ads as well as that of competition.

Every respondent was shown four ads at one go. And they were asked what they remembered.

Then they were shown the ads again. One at a time. Frame by frame.

And asked after every frame about what they understood.

These were home visits. All respondents were in their ‘natural habitat’.

Hence they were facing a lot of distractions. One respondent’s mother-in-law wanted to be part of the discussion. Another one’s daughter wanted to play with the client’s laptop.

We had tried our best to isolate the respondents so that they could be in ‘our world’ for the duration of the interview.

‘Our world’ was where nobody would disturb the discussion. Where they will see ads the way we want them to see them. Frame by frame. And respond to our queries about what they understood from every frame.

But that’s far away from reality.

Consumers watch ads in their own environment.

Sometimes family members are fighting to watch different programmes at the same time.

Most times they are switching between channels during ads.

Sometimes they are managing other tasks in the house.

Watching ads is last on their list of priorities.

Whatever messaging registers in their minds gets registered in this scenario.

So what’s the point in showing ads to them in your kind of a scenario and asking what do they think of it?

We use the wrong lens to view the problem, and more often than not end up with the wrong solution.

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