PRINT AD DECISIONS

FOR L'Oréal
Group 9
Anzhi Tian
Harriet Peng
Roshni Ganeshram
Shubhy Gupta
Wei Zeng

We pledge on our honor that we have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment.
Executive Summary

The aim of this project is to determine the effectiveness of the Print ads and identify the key factors that have an
influence on the effectiveness. Using Poisson regression and binomial logit model, the team makes the
recommendation for L’Oréal that they should adopt 22.14 inch 2 of brand size, 73.79 inch 2 of picture size on page 55
if increasing attention is needed; adopt 17.43 inch 2 of brand size, 57.88 inch2 of picture size on page 78 if increasing
recall accuracy is needed.

Introduction and Background

For a long time, advertisers want to create the most effective ad which contribute viewers’ best memory. According
to eye movement study, researchers find that the eye fixation is a good indicator to measure attention that a viewer
pays to an ad. As to the connection between attention and awareness, Psychologist Daniel Starch designed a test that
measures respondents’ recall based on their attentions and memories. Under this background, a research was
conducted among 88 participants across 35 ads in a Cosmopolitan Magazine. The dataset containing 3080
observations and 11 variables was generated.

Data and Methodology

The team was assigned with the task of assessing the Print ads effectiveness and coming up with recommendations
for improvement. The research was conducted from the perspective of the brand L’Oreal. CRISP-DM (Cross
Industry Standard Process – Data Mining) methodology is utilized as a part of the data analysis and evaluation.

Business Understanding:
The team needs to determine the following things for L’Oreal:
 Effectiveness of ads in attracting attention to the brand compared with other brands’ ads in the data.
 Recall rate of the customers after an exposure to their advertisement
 Improvements in attention and memory to L’Oreal by modifying the design and placement of their ads
Data Understanding:
The picture and brand fixation values of over 88 participants across 35 ads from a Cosmopolitan Magazine was
collected. A SAS dataset has been generated based on the brand and picture fixations of these participants. A data
with 3080 observations and 11 variables had been generated.
Data Preparation:
Although, most of the real world data is noisy and has missing values, the dataset that had been obtained do not have
any missing values.
Modeling:
The dataset has 11 variables in it. (Refer to Appendix.I)Three variables are set as dependent variables
(BRAND_FIX, PIC_FIX and RECALL_ACCU). The variables BRAND_FIX and PIC_FIX are the fixation counts
and follow a Poisson distribution, which takes only non-negative integer values. The variable RECALL_ACCU has a
binary outcome of either 0 or 1 (1 = View recall accurately, 0 = Not recall accurately). In terms of that, two Poisson
regressions are carried out for handling the count data – BRAND_FIX and PIC_FIX respectively.
A binomial logit model is carried out for handling the binary data RECALL_ACCU. Considering when brand size
becomes extremely large they can be ignored as well, there might be optimal values. Assumption is made that the
impact of size of brand/image on fixation time should follow quadratic function. As soon as the information load has
reached a point, every successive application of a variable will add less change to the total output than before.
Evaluation:
In the Poisson Regressions for BRAND_FIX and PIC_FIX, the following variables were considered to be
significant: BRAND_SIZE, PAGE_POS and PAGE_NUM. In the Binomial Regression we have found that the
variable PAGE_POS has a strong positive correlation indicating a right-position advantage. The recall accuracy
increases by 18.22% for this page position. Also, the brand name L’Oreal brings 62.64% decrease to recall accuracy
probability. After adding square variables to the model, BIC has become lower refer to Appendix.II, which validates
the assumption and square should be included to reflect the features of certain valuables.
Deployment:
The team thereby finds the Optimal value of BRAND_SIZE,PIC_SIZE and PAGE_NUM by creating individual
equations for each of these variables (based on the intercept values obtained from poisson regression) and
differentiating it. The details of which have been specified in the Key Findings.

Key Findings

L’Oreal in this case was shown on the right side of page5.The brand size is 4.38 inch*inch, the picture size is 52.59
inch*inch. The brand fixation count is around 0.5 and the picture fixation count is 5. Both are far below the average
level.18% of viewer can recall accurately and the recall time is around 2.88 seconds. (Refer to Appendix III)
To increase the fixation count of brand and picture, Poisson regression model is used to simulate the variation among
related variables including brand fixation, brand size, picture size, page number, page position and picture fixation.
To fit the data better and press closer to real business, square of correlated independent variables are added to the
model. And PAGE_POS is only contained in BRAND_FIX model since the correlation between PAGE_POS and
PIC_FIX is weak. For picture fixation, the link function and linear predictor are as below:
Link Function: Ƞ=ln E [PIC_FIX]
Linear Predictor: Ƞ=α + β1 BRAND_SIZE+ β2 PIC_SIZE + β3 PAGE_NUM +
β4 BRAND_SIZE 2 + β5 PIC_SIZE2 +β6 PAGE_NUM2
The parameter estimates in this model are shown in the Appendix.IV. Here are some findings from this model.
 The p-value of BRAND_SIZE, PIC_SIZE, PAGE_NUM are all less than 5%, which indicates that the surface
size of brand element, pictorial element and page number have significant influence on picture fixation.
 To go deeper effects of these variables, when brand size increases 1 unit, pictorial fixation will decrease by
3.05%; picture increases 1 unit, pictorial fixation will increase by 10.88%; page number increase 1 unit, pictorial
fixation will increase by 1.58%.
 According to the equation of Appendix V, we can get the optimal values to maximize pictorial fixation. The
optimal brand size equals to 22.14 inch*inch, the optimal picture size equals to 73.79 inch*inch, and the page
number equals to 55. Under this circumstance, the predicted pictorial fixation is 4.26.

Similarly, for brand fixation, the link function and linear predictor are as below. Since picture fixation will also
influence brand fixation, fix fixation is added into the model, the value of which is predicted by the upper equation.
Link Function: Ƞ=ln E [BRAND_FIX]
Linear Predictor: Ƞ=α+β1 BRAND_SIZE+ β2 PIC_SIZE + β3 PAGE_NUM + β4 PIC_FIX +
β5 BRAND_SIZE2 + β6 PIC_SIZE2+β7 PAGE_NUM2+β8 PIC_FIX2+ β9 PAGE_POS
The parameter estimates in this model are shown in the Appendix.IV .Here are some findings from this model.
 The p-value of BRAND_SIZE, PIC_SIZE, PAGE_NUM, PAGE_POS are all less than 5%, which indicates that
the surface size of brand element, pictorial element, page number and page position have significant influence
on brand fixation.
 To go deeper effects of these variables, when brand size increases 1 unit, brand fixation will increase by
27.63%; when picture increases 1 unit, brand fixation will decrease by 8.84%; when page number increase 1
unit, brand fixation will increase by 1.11%; when locating in the right, brand fixation will increase by 101.42%
compared to the left position.
 According to the equation of AppendixV, we can get the optimal values to maximize brand fixation. The
optimal brand size equals to 17.43 inch*inch; the optimal picture size equals to 57.88 inch*inch; the optimal
page number equals to 78; and the location of an ad should be right. Under this circumstance, the predicted
brand fixation is 3.43, and pictorial fixation is 1.62.
To further determine the optimal brand size, picture size, page number and position from the two sets of numbers,
Binomial Logit Model is used to compare their effect on recall accuracy. The dummy variable L’Oreal is added in
order to identify the spectacular brand effect of L’Oreal. The link function and linear predictor are as below.
Link Function: Ƞ=ln{E[RECALL_ACCU]/1-E[RECALL_ACCU]}
Linear Predictor: Ƞ=α+β1 BRAND_FIX+ β2 PIC_FIX + β3 BRAND_SIZE + β4 PIC_SIZE+
β5 PAGE_NUM + β6 PAGE_POS+ β7 L’Oreal
The parameter estimates in this model are shown in the Appendix.IV .Here are some findings from this model.
 The p-value of BRAND_SIZE, PIC_SIZE, PAGE_NUM, are all less than 5%, which indicates that the surface
size of brand element, pictorial element, and page number have significant influence on recall accuracy. When
brand size and page number increase 1, the odds of recall accuracy will increase by 2.95% and 0.78%
respectively. When picture size increase 1, the odds of recall accuracy will decrease by 1%. However, the p-
value of PAGE_POS is larger than 5%, which means that location is statistically insignificant to recall accuracy.
 The negative parameter of LOREAL indicates L’Oréal’s bad performance on attracting customers. The odds of
recall accuracy will decrease by 69.4% when the brand is L’Oréal than it is not.
 Comparing their parameters, brand fixation outweighs pictorial fixation in terms of affecting recall accuracy.
Therefore, the optimal values generated from Poisson Regression of Brand Fixation should be used to calculated
the recall accuracy, when brand size equals to 17.43 inch*inch, picture size equals to 57.88 inch*inch, page
number equals to 78 in the right position. From the above equations, the pictorial fixation and brand fixation are
expected to be 3.43 and 1.62 respectively, and the recall accuracy is 37.36%. This combination of variables
should be set up if L’Oréal focus on increasing recall accuracy.
 Considering recall accuracy under maximum pictorial fixation is also practicable, when brand size equals to
22.14 inch*inch, picture size equals to 73.79 inch*inch, page number equals to 55. From the above equations,
the pictorial fixation and brand fixation are expected to be 4.26 and 1.72 respectively, and the recall accuracy is
33.74%. This combination of variables should be set up if L’Oréal focus on increasing attention for ads.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusion
After examination of the dataset and determination of model structure, the team managed to find out the optimal
placeman for L’Oreal ads under two circumstances. If L’Oréal’s goal is increasing attention, it is suggested to adopt
22.14 inch2 of brand size, 73.79 inch 2 of picture size, and page 55. If L’Oréal’s goal is increasing recall accuracy, it is
suggested to 17.43 inch2 of brand size 57.88 inch2 of pictorial size and right side of page 78 as its optimal placement.

Recommendation
Through thorough analysis, L’Oreal is recommended to:
 Adopt 22.14 inch2 of brand size, 73.79 inch2 of picture size on page 55 if increasing attention is needed; adopt
17.43 inch2 of brand size, 57.88 inch2 of picture size on page 78 if increasing recall accuracy is needed.
 Look into the secrets behind other brands high recall probability and learn from other ads’ strengths. Within all
35 ads, Nivea has 94% of recall accuracy, ranking the first among 35 brands, while L’Oreal only has 18% of
recall accuracy, ranking 32. This distinguish gap needs to be further investigated.
 Conduct more awareness advertising to raise public recognition. The dummy variable of L’Oreal has negative
correlation with brand fixation and recall accuracy, which indicates that regardless of the design and placement
of the ads, when respondents see L’Oreal ad, they have the tendency not to focus and remember this brand. In
this case, more awareness advertising needs to be provided to address more attention from potential customers.

Limitation
Firstly, detail description of this specific sample was not provided, like their demographic background, education
level, gender etc. which makes it difficult to evaluate whether this sample is a good fit used to address ads perception
issue. More information is needed to prevent bias or unfitness.
Secondly, those specific ads are not visually available, which makes analysis harder to conduct. Some information is
missing, which prevent this analysis to capture external factors like competitor’s advertising or printing issue.
Thirdly, the criteria used to determine communicative effectiveness of the ads are limited. Solely using fixation and
accuracy to draw conclusions might cause wrong evaluation of the ad’s performance. Advertisement has different
functions, so that the criteria used to determine performance should be different to catering to different objectives.
Appendices: Tables, Exhibits, Figures
I. Data Introduction

Variable Variable Name Description

Type
RESPONDENT_ID ID number of a respondent
AD_ID ID number of an ad
BRAND brand name of the product in an ad (a character variable)
PAGE_NUM page number in the magazine where an ad appears (1,2,3,…)
Independent PAGE_POS the right-side vs. left-side position on a page, 1 = right, 0 = left
BRAND_SIZE surface size of the brand element, in inches2
PIC_SIZE surface size of the pictorial element, in inches2
RECALL_TIME the time it takes a respondent to answer the brand recall question, in
seconds.
RECALL_ACCU whether a respondent accurately recalls the brand name,
Dependent 1= yes, 0 = no
BRAND_FIX fixation count of the brand element (0, 1, 2, 3, …)
PIC_FIX fixation count of the pictorial element (0, 1, 2, 3, …)

II. Model Evaluation and Correlation

Poission Regression for pictorial fixation count

 Poission Regression for brand fixation count

Binomial Logistic Regression for Recall Accuracy

 Pearson Correlation, N = 3080
Prob > |r|, H0: Rho=0

brand_ page_ page_ page brand recall_

pic_size brand_fix pic_fix picsize 2 recall_ loreal
size num pos num 2 size 2 accu
time
brand_size 0.0706 0.35204 -0.05076 0.05345 0.1537 0.0478 0.95944 0.04433 0.04062 0.1156 -0.07523
1
<.0001 <.0001 0.0048 0.003 <.0001 0.008 <.0001 0.0139 0.0242 <.0001 <.0001

pic_size 0.0706 0.05317 0.19879 -0.0648 -0.0756 -0.035 0.11479 0.98615 0.04579 -0.03268 -0.19093
1
<.0001 0.0032 <.0001 0.0003 <.0001 0.0539 <.0001 <.0001 0.011 0.0697 <.0001
brand_fix 0.35204 0.05317 0.30909 0.05052 0.2053 0.0204 0.32348 0.04229 0.00573 0.14244 -0.07279
1
<.0001 0.0032 <.0001 0.005 <.0001 0.2588 <.0001 0.0189 0.7508 <.0001 <.0001
pic_fix -0.05076 0.19879 0.30909 0.06624 0.0284 0.0551 -0.0387 0.18666 -0.0179 0.10581 -0.0767
1
0.0048 <.0001 <.0001 0.0002 0.1153 0.0022 0.0319 <.0001 0.3219 <.0001 <.0001

page_num 0.05345 -0.06478 0.05052 0.06624 0.0825 0.9751 0.02477 -0.03678 -0.1216 0.18917 -0.21875
1
0.003 0.0003 0.005 0.0002 <.0001 <.0001 0.1694 0.0412 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001
page_pos 0.15371 -0.07561 0.20533 0.02838 0.08246 0.0911 0.12917 -0.13855 -0.0192 0.0707 0.14852
1
<.0001 <.0001 <.0001 0.1153 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 0.2878 <.0001 <.0001

2
0.0478 -0.03474 0.02035 0.05506 0.97506 0.0911 0.01212 -0.01122 -0.12 0.16531 -0.15634
pagenum 1
0.008 0.0539 0.2588 0.0022 <.0001 <.0001 0.5012 0.5335 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001

2
0.95944 0.11479 0.32348 -0.03866 0.02477 0.1292 0.0121 0.10122 0.02713 0.12913 -0.07954
brandsize 1
<.0001 <.0001 <.0001 0.0319 0.1694 <.0001 0.5012 <.0001 0.1323 <.0001 <.0001

2 0.04433 0.98615 0.04229 0.18666 -0.0368 -0.1386 -0.011 0.10122 0.05221 -0.04205 -0.21301
picsize 1
0.0139 <.0001 0.0189 <.0001 0.0412 <.0001 0.5335 <.0001 0.0038 0.0196 <.0001

recall_time 0.04062 0.04579 0.00573 -0.01785 -0.1216 -0.0192 -0.12 0.02713 0.05221 -0.14211 -0.02859
1
0.0242 0.011 0.7508 0.3219 <.0001 0.2878 <.0001 0.1323 0.0038 <.0001 0.1126
recall_accu 0.1156 -0.03268 0.14244 0.10581 0.18917 0.0707 0.1653 0.12913 -0.04205 -0.1421 -0.11408
1
<.0001 0.0697 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 0.0196 <.0001 <.0001
-0.07523 -0.19093 -0.07279 -0.0767 -0.2188 0.1485 -0.156 -0.0795 -0.21301 -0.0286 -0.11408
loreal 1
<.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 0.1126 <.0001

III. Summary Statistic

Summary statistic for All Brands
Variable N Mean Standard Error Minimum Maximum
BRAND_FIX 3080 1.71 2.73 0 32
PIC_FIX 3080 4.91 4.96 0 59
BRAND_SIZE 3080 6.88 5.70 1.82 25.17
PIC_SIZE 3080 67.51 13.41 24.02 88.09
PAGE_NUM 3080 56.8 40.62 2 127
RCALL_ACCU 3080 0.51 0.50 0 1
RECALL_TIME 3080 2.41 1.01 0.04 5.44

Summary statistic for L’Oreal

Variable N Mean Standard Error Minimum Maximum
BRAND_FIX 88 0.56 1.04 0 5
PIC_FIX 88 2.69 2.74 0 15
BRAND_SIZE 88 4.38 0 4.38 4.38
PIC_SIZE 88 52.59 0 52.59 52.59
PAHE_NUM 88 5 0 5 5
RECALL_ACCU 88 0.18 0.39 0 1
RECALL_TIME 88 2.24 1.06 0.2 4.52
IV. Data Description
Poisson Regression for Pictorial Fixations
Parameter Estimate EXP(b) Standard Error Wald Chi-Square Pr>Chisq
Intercept -2.3222 0.098058 0.1791 168.18 <.0001
brand_size -0.031 0.969476 0.0053 34.54 <.0001
brandsize2 0.0007 1.0007 0.0002 9.25 0.0024
pic_size 0.1033 1.108824 0.0056 335.82 <.0001
picsize2 -0.0007 0.9993 0 240.53 <.0001
page_num 0.011 1.011061 0.0009 136.78 <.0001
pagenum2 -0.0001 0.9999 0 88.93 <.0001

Poisson Regression for Brand Fixations

Parameter Estimate EXP(b) Standard Error Wald Chi-Square Pr>Chisq
Intercept 0.3421 1.407901 0.2642 1.68 0.1954
brand_size 0.244 1.276344 0.0089 752.18 <.0001
pic_size -0.0926 0.911558 0.0092 101.76 <.0001
page_num 0.0157 1.015824 0.0016 92.24 <.0001
pic_fix 0.1609 1.174568 0.0062 673.45 <.0001
brandsize2 -0.007 0.993024 0.0003 409.32 <.0001
picsize2 0.0008 1.0008 0.0001 110.25 <.0001
pagenum2 -0.0001 0.9999 0 122.74 <.0001
pic_fix2 -0.0034 0.996606 0.0003 184.38 <.0001
page_pos 0.7002 2.014155 0.0341 422.69 <.0001

Binomial Regression for Recall Accuracy

Parameter Estimate EXP(b) Standard Error Wald Chi-Square Pr>Chisq
Intercept -0.271 0.762616 0.2147 1.59 0.2069
brand_size 0.0291 1.029528 0.0073 15.96 <.0001
pic_size -0.0096 0.990446 0.0029 11.04 0.0009
brand_fix 0.0617 1.063643 0.0175 12.45 0.0004
pic_fix 0.0371 1.037797 0.0087 18.39 <.0001
page_num 0.0078 1.00783 0.001 66.33 <.0001
page_pos 0.1502 1.162067 0.0785 3.66 0.0556
loreal -1.1833 0.306266 0.2913 16.5 <.0001

V. Calculation Equations for Optimal Results

Quadratic function f(x) = ax2 + bx + c Symmetry axis x=-b/2a

As shown in Figure , if a > 0, the parabola has a minimum point

and opens upward. If a < 0, the parabola has a maximum point
and opens downward.