Reengineer That Ad.

KOWALICK, James; ADVERTISING; MARKETING research; MARKETING strategy; DIRECT mail advertising; EXPERIMENTAL design

This article profiles James Kowalick, a materials science engineer who uses experimental design to test the effectiveness of advertising. Kowalick spent 25 years assembling bullets, bombs, rockets and nuclear warhead detonators for the U.S. government and Aerojet, a defense contractor. Now he is trying to use his expertise to add a little brisance to advertising. The shattering power he has in mind comes not from shock ads but from the sedate realm of multivariable testing. The situation calls for a science known as experimental design, a way to harvest the most data from a small crop of experiments. The technique favored by Kowalick is called the Taguchi Method, created just after World War II by Japanese electronics engineer Genichi Taguchi. Kowalick, 66, thinks it's time to apply Taguchi to ads. What combination of headline, copy and price information delivers the most response from an ad? Experiments will tell you. Try different direct-mail pieces or e-mail pitches to see which ones get results. Madison Avenue types do not, by their nature, think like engineers. Isn't copywriting more art than science? But they may come around. "Creating ads to win awards will soon take a second seat to profitability," Kowalick says.