methodology

Survey Structure

The introduction to the questionnaire informed particpants that the survey was being conducted by Frith Dabkowski for a graduate level class at the University of Texas, the results would be used for educational purspoes only and that their responses would remain completely anonymous. They were also informed that they were required to be over the age of twenty-one as the survey was about an alcoholic product.

The questionaire contained nine sections which were divded into three main categories: pre-exposure to the ad, post-exposure to the ad, and demographic information.

Pre-Exposure

In the first section participants were asked to record the last brand of beer, rum and vodka that they had purchased, if they had never purchased one of these products then they were asked to record the first brand which came to mind. Section two then asked participants to rank three brands in each of the same three product categories, by dividing a total of 10 points between them, according to their liklihood of purchasing each one. The constant-sum scale measures the participants most natural reaction to each of the brands.

Post-Exposure

The third section asked participants to view a print ad for each brand of vodka they had ranked in section two, spending no more that 15 seconds on each one and not going back to the ad later in the survey. They were then asked to use the constant-sum scale to rank the brands again. This was to allow evaluation of the difference in purchase intent pre and post-exposure to the ad. Section five had particpants record the brand they felt most differently about after viewing the ads and whether they felt more of less favorable towards it.

Section six was composed of the same ten Likert questions repeated for each brand. Participants were given statements about the brand such as, "Stolichnaya is a good brand of vodka," and were asked to which degree they agreed with the statement on a five point scale, from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree." The final two sections were used to measure the respondents' attitude toward the ad. The respondents were presented with 10 words (e.g., "boring" and "unique" ) and 10 phrases (e.g., "I would notice this ad in a magazine") and asked to mark as many of the brands as they thought were accurately decribed by the word or phrase.

Demographic Information

Demographic information was requested at the end of the questionaire. Gender, education level and income level were asked, as well as information regarding drink behavior, such as: "how often do you drink?" and "how often do you drink vodka." Lastly participants were given the opportunity to write any other comments they wished.

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Design

This survey was intended to measure brand attitudes and how they are effected by print advertising, using a copy-testing method of evaluation which took measurement before and after viewing the chosen ads. Due to time constraints and limited resources there was no control group for this study.

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Sampling Description

Due to limited resources participants were drawn from a pool of friends and family who were sent the following email.

I'm conducting a survey for my research class this semester and would really appreciate your help. All you have to do is go to the link at the bottom of this email, it should take about 10 mins and might actually be enjoyable since its about vodka ads. If you wouldn't mind passing it on to your friends I would be forever grateful. Just remember they have to be 21 to complete it.

Just click the link to get started. http://ciadvertising.org/sa/fall_07/adv380j/frith/vodkasurvey.html

Thanks again

Frith

The questionaire was also posted on the social networking website Facebook, where it was available to friends and co-workers. As respondents were asked to forward it to their contacts a snowball effect was created to gain a wider, more diverse sample. 60 responses were considered enough for analysis, 72 were recieved, 68 were complete and subsequently used to complete the analysis.

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Data Collecting Process

The original online questionaire can be viewed in appendix b and was made available to participants through a link in the email detailed above or on the Facebook website. By clicking the 'submit' button respondents agreed to participate in the study. Data was then transported through a Coldfusion connection into a Microsoft Access Database file which was then exported into the statistical program SPSS to conduct the statistical tests outlined in the analysis section.

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