Study
In a collaboration between the research institute CreateXY and Admeira, the extent to which recall has an impact on people’s willingness to purchase a product was investigated in more detail. For this purpose, different settings (60 people per setting) were created in which subjects were exposed to a specific TV programme on SRF 1 and a comparable German private broadcaster followed by an ad break.

Source: Mediapulse TV Data (Instar Analytics), CH-DE, 01/01 –30/06/2021, Mon–Sun 7–11 pm, all platforms, overnight +7, average duration of Swiss ad breaks without special advertising formats (Admeira calculation)
Afterwards, the 60 subjects from each setting revealed their willingness to buy certain products in a virtual shop. Another setting was the control group. The people in the control group were not exposed to a programme or ad break, but went straight to the virtual shop.
Source: Admeira 2021, «Purchase Impact» (vidéo disponible en allemand)
The ad break consisted of uniformly arranged TV spots by advertisers and two commercial separator by the two TV broadcasters.
Findings
The SRF 1 setting, in particular, demonstrates the decisive effects that advertising and, above all else, recalled advertising (AdRecall) can have. These benefits also apply to the RTL setting – but are more pronounced for SRF 1.
- Firstly, conscious ‘AdRecall’ leads to 44% of people opting for the advertised product. This figure is 11 percentage points above that for the decisions made in favour of the product by the group that has seen the advertisement but cannot remember it, at 33%. In other words, an SRF 1 ‘recall uplift’ creates the perfect conditions for a ‘purchase uplift’. It is interesting to note that the effect is linear and therefore does not weaken as the number of people who recall advertising increases. A comparison of the group with AdRecall with the control group shows that the number of buyers increased by 17 percentage points.
- Secondly, the ‘purchase uplift’ in the SRF 1 setting comes to bear even if the contact with the advertising is not recalled. The TV group with advertising contact but without AdRecall saw an average measured preference for the advertised products of 33%. This figure is still 6% points higher than the control group that had no contact with advertising for the products

Basis: short ad break, SRF 1 group with 11 spots vs. control group
Source: Admeira study, ‘Purchase Impact’ 2021
The study thus confirms the importance and relevance of achieving recall values in an advertising campaign. Recall is the basis for the advertising message to manifest itself in advertising impact, thus increasing the purchase probability.
The recalled and not-recalled contact with advertising media lead to varying degrees in significantly higher purchasing impulses compared to the control group. It should therefore be clearly noted that the advertising recall, in conjunction with the advertising message, can shift short-term brand preferences in favour of the advertiser.
Admeira conducts AdPanel studies for agencies and advertisers, which can be used to measure the advertising recall and shift in the brand preference that a TV campaign achieves. The findings from the AdPanel study will help you measure and optimise the performance of your advertising campaign on an ongoing basis.
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[1] SeeAdmeira 2020, «AdRecall-Uplift»
[2] See Reinecke, Janz & Hohenauer, 2016, Controlling der Marketingkommunikation: Zentrale Kennzahlen und ausgewählte Evaluationsverfahren