Concept Testing - What questions to ask?

[AnfieldMan]

Hi all, hope you can advise on effective questions for concept testing.

We're doing some in-house testing on 3 advertising concepts to be used in newspapers that our agency has supplied us. We were qouted $5000 to outsource the testing, but decided to go ahead and utilize our employees and customers for feedback.

I just want to know what effective questions to ask in getting optimum feedback. I don't want to spend too long with them, just some quick questions.

your help is much appreciated.

[BBlackwood]

I have been through a lot of ad testing. Do NOT ask questions like, "Which ad do you like best?" or "Which ad is most effective." You will get back lots of subjective answers that will just muddy the water.

I always like to find out "What did you learn from this ad?" or "What is being said here?" The biggest question you want to answer is if the ad COMMUNICATES what you're trying to communicate.

Also, it's not really a good idea to test ads on your own employees. Internal audiences bring huge amounts of opinion and knowledge with them. Test it on your customers, or people who are just like the audience you're trying to reach.