Summary

　In recent years, the situation surrounding mass media contact has changed considerably. In the past, television commercials made up the majority of advertising media. However, currently, with the rapid growth of social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter, online advertising is gaining in importance. Given such change, companies need to shift their advertising strategy from focusing on a single medium to leveraging multiple media (cross-media advertising).
　In the past, how much a company would invest in advertising was a very important issue because the number of people reached increased in proportion to the amount of money spent on advertising. Those responsible for advertising in a company had no choice other than to rely on experience and intuition to determine the amount of television advertising. However, now that we have entered the era of cross-media advertising, communication has become much more complex, making it necessary to scientifically measure its effects. To this end, a technique known as "singlesource data research" has been gaining attention.
　Single-source data research involves identifying all consumer actions such as their contacts with media and their purchase intentions and actual purchases of given products/services through a survey of a single group of survey subjects. This method enables the measurement of the effect of each type of media through a simple cross-tabulation analysis.
　By means of single-source data research, it is possible to scientifically prove the effect of advertising, which was previously ambiguous because it was examined using traditional survey methods. It is also possible to analyze the relationship between a specific advertising message and its impact on purchase intentions. That is to say, this new survey method is expected to contribute to the optimization of advertising in terms of both "quantity" and "quality."
　In the future, only companies that use single-source data to scientifically ascertain the effect of advertising and are able to learn from failures will survive. By moving away from "try and see" advertising that is based on experience and intuition, companies should apply the PDCA cycle for advertising through scientific measurements of advertising effects.

Contents

1. The Huge Change in Media Contacts over the Last Five Years
2. Single-Source Research to Enable the "Science of Advertising"
3. Optimization of Media Using Single-Source Data
4. Effective Messages vs. Ineffective Messages
5. Discovery of New Consumer Insights
6. Learning from Failures to Achieve Advertising Optimization

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