Quantitative research

Advertising & Media Research in India

Pre-test and post-test campaigns across TV, digital and outdoor.

Quick answer

Use this method when the question calls for scored response against category norms. Market Research India runs 150–300 per cell over 1–2 weeks, in 50 Indian cities and fourteen languages.

Proposal in 24 hours
Scoped, itemised and fixed-fee.
50 cities, 14 languages
Our own supervised field teams.
Senior-led, NDA-first
A research director on every project.

2,400+

Projects delivered

Cities with field teams

Industries covered

Indian languages

Questions this method is built to answer

Commission this when one of the questions below is holding up a decision. If your question is not on the list, say so in the brief — we would rather recommend a different method than sell you this one.

Is this creative strong enough to put the media budget behind?
Does anyone remember which brand the ad was for?
Which of three edits holds attention past the first five seconds?
Did the campaign move the metric it was briefed to move?
Where is the media mix wasting reach on the wrong audience?

How we run it

5 stages, with one research director accountable across all of them. The person who scopes the study is the person who presents the findings.

1
Agree what good looks like
Norms and action standards are set before testing, using the right category benchmark rather than an all-category average.
2
Test in a realistic context
The creative is shown inside a clutter reel or a simulated feed, because an ad watched in isolation always outperforms an ad in the wild.
3
Measure attention and branding separately
Cut-through, branded recall and message take-out are measured as distinct things, since a memorable ad for the wrong brand is still a failure.
4
Run second-by-second diagnostics
Attention and response are traced across the execution, so the specific second where people disengage is identifiable.
5
Track into market
Post-launch waves link exposure to shifts in awareness and consideration, which is what turns a pre-test into a learning loop.

At a glance

Advertising & Media Research — typical study parameters

Typical scale: 150 to 300 per cell for pre-testing; 300 to 800 per wave for campaign tracking
Fieldwork window: One to two weeks for a pre-test; continuous for campaign tracking
Lead time: A pre-test can field within four working days of receiving the creative
Coverage: Target audience by city tier, language and media consumption, matched to your media plan
Languages: Creative tested in the language it will air in, never in an English substitute
Core methods: Ad pre-testing · Campaign tracking · Media habits · Creative diagnostics
Reporting: Ad effectiveness scores against norms, creative diagnostics and media mix implications
Best suited to: Deciding whether to spend behind this creative

What you receive

3 named deliverables, each written to be used rather than filed. Everything ships with the underlying data, so your team can keep working after the debrief.

Ad effectiveness scores
Scores against category norms on cut-through, branding and persuasion, with a clear read against the action standard.
Creative guidance
Diagnostics identifying the specific seconds, scenes or lines to fix, which an edit team can act on without reshooting.
Media mix insights
Reach, frequency and audience overlap implications, showing where spend is duplicating rather than adding coverage.

How the fieldwork is validated

Fieldwork in India fails quietly when nobody checks it. These controls are run on every advertising & media research study, by a quality team that reports separately from the field team.

Panel identity and device checks
Respondents are verified on identity and device fingerprint. Duplicates, VPN sessions and farm traffic are removed before fieldwork opens.
Speeders and straight-liners removed
Completes under a third of the median time, or with flat grid patterns, are dropped and replaced inside the same quota cell.
Attention traps and reviewed open ends
Trap items and a human read of every open-ended answer remove inattentive respondents and machine-written text before analysis.
Tested on the handsets India actually uses
Each survey is tested on low-end Android devices over a slow connection, because that is how most completes arrive.
Creative never tested against itself unfairly
Execution order is rotated, each respondent sees one treatment where monadic design requires it, and norms are matched on category and media format.

Method choice

Advertising & Media Research, or one of these instead?

Most briefs can be answered more than one way, and the wrong instrument is the most expensive mistake in research. Here is how advertising & media research compares with the two methods buyers most often weigh against it.

	Advertising & Media Research	Brand Health Tracking	Product & Concept Testing
Best used for	Deciding whether to spend behind this creative	Knowing whether the brand is actually moving	Deciding whether to launch, and what to fix first
Typical scale	150–300 per cell	300–1,000 per wave	100–150 per cell
Fieldwork window	1–2 weeks	2 weeks per wave	2–6 weeks
Evidence produced	Scored response against category norms	A continuous, comparable time series	Scored reactions to the real product
Projects to a population
Relative cost	Low to mid per test	Annual commitment, lower per wave	Mid, driven by cell count

Where this method stops

Pre-testing can protect you from a bad ad, but it will not design a good one. Use diagnostics to improve, not to decide by committee.

City coverage

Where this work is strongest

We field in all 50 cities, but these are the markets where this method has the most to offer — because of the infrastructure, the respondent base or the sectors concentrated there.

Before you brief us

Frequently asked questions

How long does a advertising & media research project take?

One to two weeks for a pre-test; continuous for campaign tracking. A pre-test can field within four working days of receiving the creative. Analysis and reporting add a further one to two weeks, so most studies close inside six to ten weeks from brief to debrief.

What sample size do you recommend?

150 to 300 per cell for pre-testing; 300 to 800 per wave for campaign tracking. The right number is set by the smallest subgroup you need to report separately, not by a round figure, and we will say when a smaller sample would answer the question just as well.

What drives the cost of advertising & media research in India?

Incidence and audience difficulty first, then scale, the number of cities and languages, and the depth of reporting. Relative to other methods on this site, the cost profile is: low to mid per test. Send a brief and you get a fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours.

When is advertising & media research the wrong choice?

Pre-testing can protect you from a bad ad, but it will not design a good one. Use diagnostics to improve, not to decide by committee.

How do you control quality in the field?

Respondents are verified on identity and device fingerprint. Duplicates, VPN sessions and farm traffic are removed before fieldwork opens. Beyond that, creative never tested against itself unfairly: execution order is rotated, each respondent sees one treatment where monadic design requires it, and norms are matched on category and media format.

Can international teams commission this from outside India?

Yes. We report in English, run calls across US, European and Asian time zones, and handle local-language fieldwork and translation end to end.

Study at a glance

Discipline: Quantitative
Typical scale: 150–300 per cell
Field window: 1–2 weeks
Projectable: Yes
Relative cost: Low to mid per test
Cities covered: 50

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Keep exploring

Everything built on this method

8 metros, 42 Tier 2 markets, 30 sectors and 15 guides, each applying advertising & media research to one specific context.

Tier 1 metros

Full-scale fieldwork, viewing facilities and senior decision-maker access.

Tier 2 markets

Each city covered from a local field base that also reaches the surrounding districts.

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By industry

The same method applied to one sector’s audiences, vocabulary and buying process.

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Guides and pricing

Cost drivers, briefing checklists and buyer guides written for this method.

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Every other service

The full method set, from qualitative immersion to strategic modelling.

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Next step

Ready to scope a advertising & media research study?