[ANTHRO-L] What techniques would you suggest?

[McCreery John]

On Tuesday, March 26, 2002, at 04:58 AM, Richard Wilsnack wrote [on
Anthro-L]:

>  Maybe myths constrain
> our minds more than they fire our imaginations? Does the
> advertising industry need a "Manifesto for Iconoclasts"?
>

A new one appears every decade or so. For a really good historical
treatment of the sixties version have a look at Thomas Frank (1998)_The
Conquest of Cool:Business Culture, Counter Culture, and the Rise of Hip
Consumerism_.

That said, I would like to report back to my friends on Anthro-L,
Linganth, and Easianth that several of the answers to my query about
techniques for analyzing the advertising that appears on the CM at NAVI
website have pointed in the same directions. They suggest that I look at
such issues as what clients and consumers think of the ads and whether
they were successful in changing attitudes or behavior. These are, of
course, good questions--but, here is the point I raise here, THEY CANNOT
BE ANSWERED WITH THE DATA THE SITE MAKES AVAILABLE, which I took some
pains to describe at length as follows,

"The presentation includes one or more key visuals, the full text of the
narration and titles, a list of the creative staff involved in producing
the commercial, and a concept statement concerning the thinking that
went into the commercial's making.Also included are profile information
on the sponsor and product category and the length of the commercial and
an evaluation by the editorial staff of BRAIN, giving one to four stars
for impressiveness, ease-of-understanding, liking, and performance."

My methodological issue is not which of all possible questions would I
like to answer? but, rather, given this data set, what sorts of
questions are both interesting and answerable?

Any thoughts?

John L. McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd.
55-13-202 Miyagaya
Nishi-ku, Yokohama
JAPAN 220-0006

Tel +81-45-314-9324
Fax+81-45-316-0449
e-mail mccreery at gol.com

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