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Relevance of Study
Viewer Response Profile scale (VRP), is often used by business and research firms to determine
what type of advertising is most appealing & attractive to a consumer. The viewer response
profile gauges’ affective reactions to advertisements. It focuses on the emotional component of
communication effect & indicates how people feel after seeing a commercial rather than what
they know. The VRP assesses few facets relating to how people feel about an advertisement,
whether they see it as Entertaining, confusing, relevant or get a sense of empathy. Within the
advertising & marketing research programs, however, the use of VRP scales has found that TV &
Internet advertising may be almost as effective. With more & more of the general population
using digital medium & Internet to obtain news & entertainment, quickly bypassing print
advertisement & radio advertisement.
The objective of our research is to collect data with respect to few Government Commercials &
apply the VRP to provided summary of the emotional scales, & information about how the sample
population views the program as familiar, if they feel empathetic to a cause & even how the
advertisement, on television or on the Internet, may be considered alienating. Understanding
these various dynamics, without influence by the audiences’ knowledge or expertise, can provide
us with a clearer objective outcome of factors to be considered while planning of Government
advertising & marketing campaign.
Literature Review
Advertising researchers working on effectiveness of commercials have worked on numerous
ways at measuring them in a scientific manner. Discussed below are a few important research
papers that captured these dimensions.
One of the earliest studies on television advertising by Bauer & Greyser (1968) asked respondents
to count the advertisements that struck them as being offensive, annoying, enjoyable or
informative. Only 15% of the advertisements evoked positive reaction. About 72% of the
advertisements were either considered enjoyable or informative. About 23% of advertisements
were perceived as being annoying & 4% were offensive. The study included some 524
commercials. Responses were subjected to a Factor Analysis which revealed that advertisements
fell into categories like entertaining, personal relevance, disliked & warmth.
Four studies attempted at creating scales that allowed for studying viewer responses to ads
(Leavitt, 1970; Schlinger, 1979; Aaker & Bruzzone, 1981; Aaker & Stayman, 1990). The first study
by Leo Burnett & reported in the study by Leavitt et al, 1970 looks at a set of six distinct factors
Emotional appeal
Advertisers / marketers resort to the usage of emotion as part of their communication strategy.
According to Stout & Rust (1993) television advertising has turned to emotional appeals to
capture consumer’s attention, encourage recall and positive effect, discourage zapping, and give
a lift to the sales message.
Rational appeals
The rational approach to communicating stems from the traditional work on consumer decision
making where the consumer is making logical and rational decisions. Such appeals relate to the
audience’s self-interest by showing product benefits (Kotler and Armstrong, 1994). Some
examples of a product being shown with a rational appeal are – product quality, economy, value
or performance.
Celebrity appeals
The use of celebrities in communicating to the target audience has been in vogue from a long
time. They have been known to promote a wide variety of products and services. Today
celebrities and their images are found in print, radio and approximately 20 percent of all
television commercials. (Boyd & Shank, 2004).
Sample
Since this was a study that required audience responses to a television commercial, the audience
had to first see the advertisement & then answer the questions for participating in the survey. A
questionnaire based on Schlinger VRP scale was prepared using Google Docs. The online
questionnaire was shared with lot of people from different age & income group & response data
was collected. The channel of sharing the questionnaire was mainly mediums of social
collaboration so that it reaches out to as much audience as possible to increase the participation
levels.
The survey received 102 responses. The sample consisted of 31% females and 69% male. All of
them belonged to the middle and upper middle class. About 58% of the respondents were
Graduates, 36% were Post Graduates & remaining 6% were having other educational
qualifications.
GENDER EDUCATION
Post
Female Graduat
31% ion
36% Graduat
Male ion
69% Others 58%
6%
Age of the respondents varied from a low of 13 years to a high of 58 years, however most of
them (around 50%) belonged to the age group of 31-40 years.
Most of the respondents had a good awareness of Govt. Initiatives & were aware of campaigns
like Digital India, Make in India, Swachh Bharat, etc. through various media channels like Radio,
Television, Social Media or Online medium.
Awareness
90
80 85
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
12 5
0
6 Months to 1 Year Less than 6 months More than 1 Year
Commercial Selected
The Commercials selected for the study was a very popular Swachh Bharat commercial featuring
Bollywood stars (including Anushka Sharma). These are approximately 2 min second video, tells
that incredible India - the symbol of wealth as per Indian mythology
The commercial was launched in Television; Social Media & Online channels & was an instant hit
with views reaching 1.5 lakhs within the first 24 hours of its launch. It has around 18 lakh views
in YouTube currently. And some of the ads were popularized in Social Media through
#DontLetHerGo.
The URL for the videos is
Assumptions / Limitations
This section puts forth a few assumptions that were considered for the study.
1. Respondents who were aware of the advertised campaign and those who did were not
will rate the commercials in a similar manner.
2. There are no significant differences among viewers as measured by their exposure to
television on the dimensions selected for study (as captured by viewing time per day in
hours).
80
85
60
40
20
12 5
0
6 Months to 1 Year Less than 6 months More than 1 Year
For the purpose of public response, Google Form Click Here has been used to collect the data
from public. Along with demographics, it has 25 different questionnaires which categorized in
seven different categories for the study.
For the data collection, I used stratified random sampling approach where as google form share
to friends and family members randomly and those members again forward the same survey to
get it filled and shared their responses on Government commercials. The data or responses
received from different part of the India just not limited to only state or region.
Below is the analysis on the responses received for the questions given in the questionnaire across
various dimensions.
Entertainment
Descriptive Statistics
Mean Std. N
Deviation
1) The campaign commercials was lot of fun to watch & listen to. 3.64 1.042 102
2) The campaign commercials weren't just selling, It was entertaining me & I 3.66 1.067 102
appreciate that.
3) The enthusiasm of the campaign commercials is catching & it picks you up. 3.79 .978 102
4) The characters in the campaign commercials capture your attention. 3.86 1.025 102
5) These are campaign commercials that keep up running through your mind after 3.42 1.181 102
you’ve seen it.
1. The campaign commercials were lot of fun to watch & listen to?
3. The enthusiasm of the campaign commercials is catching & it picks you up.
5. These are campaign commercials that keep up running through your mind after you’ve
seen it.
Descriptive Statistics
Mean Std. N
Deviation
6) It was distracting - trying to watch the screen and listen to the words at the same 2.12 1.128 102
time.
7) It was too complex. I wasn’t sure of what was going on. 1.83 .976 102
8) I was so busy watching the screen, I didn’t listen to the talk. 2.03 1.029 102
Relevant News
2. The campaign told about a new message I think I’d like to try.
Brand Reinforcement
Descriptive Statistics
Std.
Mean Deviation N
12) That’s a good brand & I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it to others. 3.76 1.016 102
13) I know that the advertised brand is a dependable, reliable one 3.74 1.052 102
Empathy
Government commercials Vs Public Responces
Descriptive Statistics
Std.
Mean Deviation N
14) The campaign commercials were very realistic i.e. true to life. 3.81 1.088 102
15) I felt that the campaign commercials were acting out what I feel at times. 3.28 1.164 102
16) I felt as though I was right there in the campaign commercials experiencing the same. 3.33 1.056 102
17) That’s my idea-the kind of life that campaign commercials showed. 3.46 1.031 102
2. I felt that the campaign commercials were acting out what I feel at times.
Descriptive Statistics
Mean Std. Deviation N
18) This kind of campaign commercials has been done many a times…it’s the same 2.57 1.104 102
old thing.
19) I’ve seen these campaign commercials so many times, I’m tired of it. 2.45 1.096 102
20) I think these are unusual campaign commercials. I ‘m not sure I’ve seen another 2.98 1.143 102
like it.
2. I've seen these campaign commercials so many times, I'm tired of it.
3. I think these are unusual campaign commercials. I am not sure I have seen another like
it.
1. What they showed didn't demonstrate the claims they were making about the campaign
4. The campaign commercials made exaggerated claims. The message would not live up to
what they said or implied
Chapter 5
Results / Conclusion
The scale designed by Schlinger was used for eliciting viewer responses on select television
commercials. The scale consisted of 25 items/questions spread over seven constructs. The scale
consisted of 5 choices ranging from highly agree to highly disagree. For ‘highly agree’ a
weightage of 5 while for highly disagree a weightage of 1 was given. See Table 1 below for
Relevant News
Reinforcement
Entertaining
Familiarity
Alienation
Confusion
Empathy
Brand
Brand
Swachh Mean 3.67 1.99 3.42 3.47 2.27 3.75 2.66
Bharath Sample 102 102 102 102 102 102 102
SD 0.893 0.902 1.01 0.892 1.07 0.969 0.760
Scores above depict that:
1. This Swachh Bharat commercial scored High on Entertainment. The commercial was
entertaining & connected with the audience very well. The characters were able to convey
the intended message and entertained the audience from the start till the end.
2. The commercial scored Low on Confusion. The audience did not find themselves
confused after seeing the Ad. The message was very clear and reached the audience
effectively.
3. This Swachh Bharat ad scored High on Relevant News dimension. The content was very
much relevant to the audience and they were able to relate the activities to their day to
day lives. Also Indians being God fearing by nature, the message had a direct impact on
the viewers.
4. The commercial scored High on Empathy factor since none of want God to leave us and
go. The audience were able to empathize & kind of relate the behavior demonstrated by
the characters to activities happening around them daily.
5. The ad scored Low on Alienation. There was no exaggeration in the content & nothing
unconvincing about the behaviors displayed by the characters.
6. The commercial scored Highest on Brand Reinforcement since it was able to perform the
task of reinforcing the brand image expected for Swachh Bharat & created a positive
attitude towards its viewers.
7. This Swachh Bharat ad scored Average on Familiarity since the content was new and the
viewers did not find it matching with any other brand promotion. The celebrities in this
ad have not done anything similar before and hence the viewers do not get bored with
the concept of the ad.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/JOA0091-3367360408
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