Structure of the questionnaire
Throughout the survey, respondents were only permitted to move forward - they could not refer back to earlier sections of the survey or the advertisements. Certain responses were required and the respondent could not advance without answering them.
Introduction
The survey opened with a brief introduction, assuring respondents that the survey was for educational purposes, that it asked no personal questions and that all responses would be kept strictly confidential.
Pre-exposure (Steps 1 and 2)
In Step 1, the respondent was asked to identify, without prompting, the last brand of olive oil, pasta noodels and tomato sauce he/she purchased. If he/she had never purchased one of these products or had forgotten which brand was purchased last, the respondent was asked to name the first brand that came to mind for each cateogry.
In Step 2, the respondent was asked to divide ten points on a constant-sum scale between three brands in each of these categories: olive oil, pasta noodles and tomato sauce. Only the tomato sauce scores were used in this analysis. The respondent was asked to divide these 10 points immediately before and immediately after viewing the three ads under consideration. The difference between the score for each brand before and after exposure is referred to in this study as the "change score."
Advertising exposure (Step 3)
In Step 3, the respondent was shown one full-page, four-color ad for each of the three brands (Bertolli, Prego and Ragu). The survey instructions suggested respondents view each ad for about 30 seconds and then move on to the next and the respondents could not return to the ads after they'd been viewed. The ads can be seen by clicking the links below:
Post-exposure (Steps 4 and 5)
After viewing the ads, the respondent was asked to rate his/her likelihood of purchasing each of the brands using the same constant-sum scale as in Step 2. In Step 5, the respondent was asked if his/her impression of any of the brands changed after viewing the ads and, if so, which one.
Brand attitudes (Steps 6a, 6b and 6c)
For each of the three brands, the respondent was presented with ten Likert items asking if he/she strongly agreed, agreed, neither agreed nor disagreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed with ten statements about the brand. Although some questions were phrased negatively, scores were coded so that higher scores (with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest) indicated more positive perceptions of the brand.
Advertising attitudes (Steps 7 and 8)
The next two steps asked questions about the advertisements the respondent was shown earlier. In Step 7, the respondent was asked to check all the boxes beside the words that he/she felt applied to the advertising for each brand. Similarly, in Step 10, the respondent was asked to check all the boxes beside the phrases he/she felt applied to the advertising for each brand. The Advertising Index Score was calculated by counting the number of boxes that were checked which included positively worded statements.
Demographics and lifestyle (Step 9)
The respondent was asked basic demographic questions including gender, age, household income and level of education as well as the number of people in the respondents' household and the number of times each respondent's household eats dinner at home per week.
Design
The survey was designed to measure brand perceptions and the impact of advertising using a copy-testing method that took measurements before and after exposure to the ads. Respondents were asked to score three brands immediately before and after viewing ads for those brands. Other attitudes were measured after exposure to the ad. Due to time constraints and limited resources, this study was conducted without a control group with which to compare responses.
Sampling
Due to time and resource constraints, this study used a convenience sample made up mostly of family and friends who were contacted through a mass email as well as a posting on myspace using the following email:
Dear Friends,
I am in DESPERATE need of your help! I am taking a research methods class this semester and MUST HAVE 60 responses to a consumer preferences survey I've created by next Wednesday! If I don't get 60 responses, I won't graduate this December. The survey is about the exciting world of tomato sauce, there are no embarrassing/weird questions and it will only tak you about 10 minutes.
Please click on the following link: http://www.ciadvertising.org/SA/fall_07/adv380j/shelby1895/survey.html to complete the survey.
If you're really feeling industrious, please feel free to forward this on to some of your friends as well!
Many thanks for your help!
SH :)
Respondents were in turn asked to forward the link to the survey to their own friends and colleagues, creating a snowball sample. Sixty responses were considered sufficient for analysis, and 75 responses were collected, of which 63 were complete enough for analysis.
Online Data Collection
The data for this survey was collected using the online questionnaire in Appendix B. Respondents accessed the questionnaire using the link contained in an e-mail sent to friends and family. A link to the survey was also posted on my myspace page. The survey concluded wth a confirmation of participation and a submit button. The responses were collected using Cold Fusion in a Microsoft Access database, which was imported into SPSS for analysis.
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