Pre-testing

Pre-testing is evaluating advertising before airing, from animatics to finished films, to predict whether the work will perform. The debate about it is as old as the discipline. Proponents point to the correlation between good test scores and market results and to the safety net against expensive failures. Critics point to systems that ask about rational message take-out while advertising largely works through feeling and recognition, and to the incentive to create toward the test, which rewards safe, interchangeable work. The mature position: test to learn and manage risk, with methods that measure emotion, and never let the test replace the creative bar.

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