Tested To Destruction

Testing to Destruction by Alan Hedges is 30 years old and it's still a must-read for planners. Sadly it's no longer in print but here's a free download (pdf) of the reprint with commentaries by Sally Ford-Hutchinson and Mary Stewart-Hunter. And here are some introductory thoughts from Stuart Smith of Wieden + Kennedy:

"Yep... uh huh...yeah...absolutely...yep...yep...uh huh...god...yeah...clearly...good point...uh huh...I suppose so...completely...yes siree bob".   Apart from the last one, which I made up because I ran out of 'uh huh' synonyms, that's what I was thinking as I was recently rereading Testing to Destruction, by Alan Hedges.

Despite being written 30 years ago, you still read it and agree.

The trouble is, you also read it and weep.  It's depressing.

Why the long face?  Well, it's an authoritative, intelligent and mostly unarguable case for striking the word 'testing' from the advertising research lexicon.  It makes for gloomy reading because it failed to achieve this admirable ambition.  The book shakes its fist and grrs at pre-testing, but hasn't scared it away.

Most of us, I'm guessing, would rather not pre-test if given the choice.  Come on& be honest& we all hate it really.  Well, it's not so much that we hate the 'it', but rather we hate how the 'it' is interpreted and abused by confidence-lacking lackeys.  The book talks a lot about this.  Very well.  Sadly, though, not well enough for the abuse to have diminished, 30 years of hurt later.  Depressing really.

And maybe that's the only serious criticism of the book.  I was naively hoping for a holy grail killer 'ta da' there you go Mr Brand Manager type argument.  The book is comprehensive, but you still emerge from reading it thinking that there will always be a 'yes, but... surely it's a better guide to success than doing nothing' response.  Drat.

OK, so it doesn't have that.  But it does have tonnes of stuff that can be nicked for presentations, which is always good.  And it's amazing how little needs updating - most of the hypotheses have heartily stood the test of quite a bit of time.

Indeed, many of the arguments - such as the complexity of how advertising works - resonate more now than ever.  It's worth reading the book for this dissertation alone, by the way.  Hedges also talked about advertising not being "an instrument to do things to people".  He couldn't have possibly known at the time that the balance and direction of the advertiser/advertisee relationship would change to the degree that it recently has.

In places, the book bangs on a bit, and in other places you kind of go "well yeah", but there's plenty in there to remind you about a load of important stuff.    I first read it when I was just planning plankton, about ahemhrmph years ago.  Not only does it remain a great baby planner's read, but it's also worthy of a re-skim amongst those of us who've spent years pleading with clients to use research to inform judgement, not replace it.  We've got to keep fighting the fight, people.

Who's with me?

Stuart.Smith@wk.com