Advertising Pre-Testing in India: Method, Sample and Brief

Pick the method by the question you can still act on, not by the tool you already know.

A route is a distinct creative idea or version of the ad.

The group sizes and numbers of groups are our recommendations.

A pre-test is not an A/B test. An A/B test needs the ad to be live and real media money spent; a pre-test is how you decide what goes live. For testing a product or proposition rather than a finished ad, see our guide to concept testing.

Plan 8 to 12 interviews per audience segment to find problems. To compare ads with a number, plan 150 people per ad to detect gaps of about 11 points, and 400 to 500 per ad to detect gaps of 6 to 7 points. The two jobs use different arithmetic.

Finding problems (interviews). The chance that at least one interviewee meets a problem is 1 − (1 − p)^n, where p is the share of your audience the problem affects and n is the number of interviews. This is our model. It assumes every person who meets the problem says so and that interviewees are chosen at random, so treat each figure as an upper bound.

A problem that trips one viewer in twenty needs far more interviews than eight, and interviews cannot say how many viewers have it. They tell you what the problem is, not how big it is. For more on sizing, see sample size in qualitative research.

Comparing ads (survey). To call a winner at 95% confidence (meaning a gap this size would appear by chance in only about 1 test in 20 if the ads were truly equal), the gap between two ads must exceed 1.96 × √(2 × p × (1 − p) ÷ n). Here p is the expected score and n is the number per ad. This is our model, run with p = 0.45 for a top-box score (the share choosing the highest rating), a middling score where the margin is widest.

These gaps are minimums. If the true gap equals the figure, a survey would flag it only about half the time. With 150 per ad, an ad scoring 50% against one scoring 42% is not a result. If the realistic gap between your routes is under about 10 points, plan several hundred per ad, or treat a smaller survey as directional.

Pre-tests often mislead when the verdict was never defined, the wrong people were asked, or the method was asked to prove something it cannot. These are the failures we would check first, in our experience.

No pass mark. If nobody wrote down what "good enough" means, any result can be argued. Before fieldwork, write the threshold, for example "at least 80% of interviewees state the main message unprompted" or "the ad must beat the control, your current or baseline ad, by more than the gap in the table above." If no route clears it, that is a result. Go back to the creative.

Scoring feelings, not the objective. "Enjoyable" and "likeable" scores are easy to collect and can differ from whether the ad does its job. Tie every question to the objective: awareness, consideration, a specific message, or a behaviour.

Asking the colleagues' audience. People who work in advertising, media and marketing read ads differently from buyers. Screen them out, and screen in on category use and brand relationship. Our research screener template has the questions.

Testing only the English version. A tagline can be understood differently by different segments, and a translation can shift tone. Test the version the audience will actually see, in the language they would see it, and ask people to say the line back in their own words.

Letting the group decide. In an FGD, the loudest voice shapes the room. Use one-to-one interviews for first reactions and groups for the talk-through afterwards. Our focus group discussion guide covers running one.

ASCI's Advertising Advice reviews a proposed ad against the ASCI code before you publish, and the advice is advisory and non-binding on the advertiser and on ASCI's Consumer Complaints Council. It checks claims, not whether an audience understands or likes the ad, and it is not a clearance.

ASCI's 2025-26 annual report covers 11,581 cases relating to 9,841 advertisements, which shows how much advertising is examined after it runs.

As of October 2026, ASCI's published fees are:

Regular turnaround is 5 to 7 business days and express is 3 to 4 business days, for members only. Applicants submit the material with supporting evidence for technical claims.

Run the ASCI check on the claim wording and the audience pre-test on the idea. Do the audience pre-test first: if interviews show people reading a claim differently from your intent, you will submit better copy.

Show the ad cold, ask for a reaction before any explanation, then work through message, audience, belief and confusion in a fixed order. The order matters because later questions contaminate earlier answers.

1. First reaction (3 minutes). Show the ad once. Ask: "What was that? Tell me whatever comes to mind."
2. Playback (5 minutes). "Tell the story back to someone who hasn't seen it." Pass: at least 80% of interviewees retell the core story. Fail: below 60%.
3. Takeaway and brand (5 minutes). "What is the main thing it wants you to know? Which brand is it from?" Pass: at least 80% name the intended message and brand unprompted. Fail: below 60%.
4. Who it is for (5 minutes). "Who is this for? Who is it not for?" Pass: at least 80% of interviewees from your target audience say it is for people like them. Fail: below 60%.
5. Belief (8 minutes). Read each claim aloud. "Do you believe this? What would make you believe it?" Pass: 20% or fewer doubt the same claim. Fail: more than 30%. Flag every doubted claim and check it against the ASCI code.
6. Friction (7 minutes). "Was anything confusing, annoying or uncomfortable?" Replay the ad and ask them to stop it at that point. Pass: 20% or fewer name the same friction point. Fail: more than 30%.
7. Language and tone (7 minutes). Ask them to say the main line in their own words, in their own language. Pass: at least 80% restate the same meaning. Fail: below 60%.
8. Routes (5 minutes, only now). If you are testing more than one route, compare them last, with the order rotated across interviewees. Prefer the route that passes more of steps 2 to 7.

Between a pass and a fail, revise the ad and re-test. These thresholds are our recommendation. They are a directional gate for 8 to 12 interviews, where "80%" means 8 of 10 people, not a measured rate for your whole audience.

The brief we need from you has these parts:

We price each ad pre-test as a tailored proposal, not from a rate card. The price depends on the research method, the audience and participant profile, the sample, the geography, how hard recruitment is, and the scope of reporting.

In the order we would expect them to move the price, our judgement, the factors are: the number of interviews or groups, how narrow or hard to reach the audience is, the method, the cities, and the deliverables. For the cost of recruitment alone, see user research recruitment cost in India. For participant incentives, see how much to pay focus group participants in India.

We run the qualitative stage: in-depth interviews, focus groups and online bulletin boards. We recruit by city, target by household and demographic profile, and verify participant identity before any invitation goes out. Sessions run in languages other than English, with a moderator we arrange or one you supply, depending on the project. Depending on the scope we agree beforehand, you receive recordings, transcripts, structured data exports or a written report.

Participants give informed consent before they see unreleased material. Our approach is guided by the ICC/ESOMAR code, from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and ESOMAR, the global research body, and by the Market Research Society of India.

Email your brief to support@qualfacto.io and we can start with a free pilot. We work by email for briefs and WhatsApp for quick questions. We assess feasibility and send a tailored proposal and quote. We aim to reply within one business day, Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:00 Indian Standard Time (IST).