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The Given Question Is Complete

- AFLAC is an insurance company known for supplemental health and life insurance policies. In the late 1980s, the company had little brand recognition. - Through extensive marketing research, AFLAC adopted the duck as its mascot. Research found that ads featuring a quacking duck were highly memorable and appealing to audiences. - Test audiences loved the duck commercials. As a result of the successful campaign, AFLAC's brand recognition soared to 90% and its annual sales growth increased significantly. The duck became a global phenomenon for the company.

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88 views2 pages

The Given Question Is Complete

- AFLAC is an insurance company known for supplemental health and life insurance policies. In the late 1980s, the company had little brand recognition. - Through extensive marketing research, AFLAC adopted the duck as its mascot. Research found that ads featuring a quacking duck were highly memorable and appealing to audiences. - Test audiences loved the duck commercials. As a result of the successful campaign, AFLAC's brand recognition soared to 90% and its annual sales growth increased significantly. The duck became a global phenomenon for the company.

Uploaded by

Vikram Kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The given question is complete:

The complete question is:

AFLAC: Marketing Research Quacks a Duck AFLAC Incorporated (www.aflac.com) sells


supplemental health and life insurance. In the United States, AFLAC is known for its policies
that “pay cash” to supplement or replace a policyholder’s income when an accident or
sickness prevents the policyholder from working. In 1989, the Columbus, GA, American
Family Life Assurance Company adopted the acronym AFLAC. At that point, the company
had very little brand recognition; the name AFLAC meant nothing to potential customers. To
boost brand recognition, AFLAC undertook extensive marketing research and emerged with
the symbol of the duck. As of 2014, AFLAC boasts 90 percent brand recognition. This is so
high that it actually rivals Coke, the company with the highest brand recognition at 95
percent. Even children (ages 8 to 13) are familiar with the AFLAC name, ranking it in
popularity close to Pepsi, Old Navy, and M&M’s. This is important, because as children
grow up and start to buy insurance, the AFLAC name will be at the front of their minds.
Marketing research was at the forefront of the campaign. First, the decision was made to
simply try to use ads to increase brand recognition rather than sell insurance. This decision
came from focus groups and survey research that found customers would think that they did
not need whatever type of insurance was being advertised, whether it be for life, health,
home, or so on. Instead, research indicated that customers would respond to insurance ads
better if they simply raised the recognition of the brand. Then, salespeople would do the job
of educating potential customers about the need for different types of insurance products.
After the decision was made to just raise brand awareness with ads, a specific campaign had
to be created. Again, marketing research played a major role. From the start it was decided
that the ads that tested the best were going to be the ads that would be used. The research said
that respondents viewing the ads preferred the AFLAC duck much more than any other test
ad viewed. But where did the duck come from? During the ad development process, one of
the ad agency (the Kaplan Thaler Group) researchers just began to say the word “AFLAC”
over and over again. Eventually, it was noticed that this word, said a certain way, sounded
like a quacking duck. The risk in this choice was that AFLAC was making fun of the fact that
no one knew about the brand name, and humor in advertising does not always appeal to
people who want a more serious tone from their insurance company. What if the people had
seen the television commercial and thought, “How stupid!” or “A life insurance company
should be more serious than that,”? Therefore, the duck commercials were tested against
alternatives in experimental design situations. The test audiences loved the duck commercials
and rated them the most memorable out of all the possibilities (which was AFLAC’s main
objective). Thus, the duck was born. The campaign has been nothing but a success. Not only
has AFLAC’s brand recognition soared, but the company’s sales have as well. Before the
duck campaign, AFLAC’s annual sales were growing in the 10 to 15 percent range. Post
duck, AFLAC’s sales were growing at an annual rate of 20 to 24 percent. Surprisingly, the
growth is not limited to the United States. In fact, 70 percent of AFLAC’s profits are from
clients in Japan. The duck is now a world phenomenon, and AFLAC has marketing research
to thank. Conclusion The case describes the crucial role of marketing research in designing
the right advertising campaign and the resulting impact on brand recognition. The
extraordinary growth in AFLAC’s name recognition within just a few years of the launch of a
new advertising campaign speaks volumes about the marketing research that was conducted
to test the duck commercials.
QUESTION: If a duck commercial is to be tested against two nonduck commercials to
determine which ad generates more favorable attitudes toward AFLAC, what type of
experimental design would you recommend? (The preceding question to this was "AFLAC
wants to test a duck commercial against a nonduck commercial to determine which ad
generates more favourable attitudes toward AFLAC. What type of experiment design would
you recommend? Why would you recommend this type of design?") Please keep this in mind
when answering the bolded question. Thanks!

Answer

A factorial design of experiments is recommended because it can measure the effectiveness


of advertising in any group. Consequently, in this case, I think a factorial design is
recommended. Currently, there is one factor with a treatment level of AD 1 and rhinoceros
AD II.

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