ABSTRACT

Given the recent trend towards results-driven advertising, it is not surprising that many tourism and leisure companies and organizations have increasingly turned to research in an effort to cut down on wasted expenditure and to reduce the risk of running potentially brand-damaging campaigns. Certainly good, well-timed research can vastly improve the content and effectiveness of advertising. It can also demonstrate accountability and cost-effectiveness – two criteria that are increasingly significant given that advertising is usually an expensive element of the promotional budget. This kind of marketing research is a highly specialized area precisely because it attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising as a method of marketing communications and persuasion. It is also, however, a highly controversial area because many advertising practitioners and commentators, themselves, often disagree over whether the creation of a successful campaign is pure inspiration or calculated science. As one has said:

Just when it looked as though a stake had been driven through its heart, research mania is threatening to rise Dracula-like from its coffin to haunt . . . advertising again . . . summoned back to life by ultracautious clients who are driven to seek safety in number crunching by the sheer expense of advertising and tighter margins that leave little room for error.1