Our History

2006
ARSgroup restructures and revitalizes the organization and its measures to focus on the customer.

2005
ARSgroup enhances the Outlook Planner/Forecaster to add a wider band of "what-if" scenarios to help marketers make more informed decisions.

2004-05
ARSgroup responds to the emerging marketing communications ROI environment with innovative ad management and development solutions to meet the demands for higher marketing communications ROI and great creative.

2004
ARSgroup commits to uncovering the role of emotion in advertising that creates brand preference, sales and market share by forming a partnership with ADSAM® Marketing, LLC, a recognized leader in measuring emotion in advertising.

ARSgroup publishes a comprehensive study on how Better Practices in Advertising can change the Cost of Doing Business to Wise Investments in the Business. It is aimed at providing advertisers the knowledge, measurement, models and tools needed to support improvement in their Return on Marketing Investment.

2003
ARS Context competitive assessment service launched, enhancing the ARS WOWWW Competitive Intelligence system. This service delivers a quick read on the likely threat that competitive advertising poses to a brand's performance and marketing communications ROI.

ARS StarBoard storyboard reviewer launched. Built upon the latest research on factors that drive sales-effective advertising, the ARS StarBoard reviewer provides the feedback needed to review storyboards and identify creative approaches with the most potential.

2002
Empirical Knowledge learning from most recent Validation and Business Implication Study uncovers the impact of flighting, continuity and "going dark" on market results and demonstrates that 94% of all advertising has a positive impact on sales.

2001
Internet version of Outlook planner added to e-commerce platform, including new projection of model of quarterly sales/share return on advertising.

Embracing a new industry vision, ARSgroup launches its e-commerce portal (arswowww.com) providing online access to a variety of marketing information. This portal can also deliver its Quality Measurement Feedback, "Best Practice" Tools, and Market Intelligence to every marketing desktop in an organization, anywhere in the world.

2000
ARS WOWWW Competitive Intelligence service is launched, delivering market activity from around the world to marketing desktops.

1999
ARSgroup enters the second generation with the launch of Global ARS Firstep and ARS testing (three to four regions of the world simultaneously) and the infusion of a new energetic management team.

1996
John Philip Jones (Syracuse University) publishes an independent verification of ARS validation evidence. No other company has undergone such review.

1994
Basic Research findings on how advertising works both in the short and long term are published.

1991
Basic Research findings on the role emotion plays in advertising that sells are published.

1990
Having established the standards for measuring advertising sales effectiveness, ARSgroup focuses on helping advertisers improve the advertising-to-sales track record through the "best practices" approach and empirically-based improvement tools.

1988
Sound Basic Research isolates the importance of the underlying selling or value proposition in creating ads that sell. This knowledge leads to the ARS Firstep tool which applies the sales-validated ARS Persuasion measure early in the ad development process to identify strong propositions before the expense of creative development.

1987
ARSgroup publishes breakthrough empirical findings on the advertising wearout phenomenon, indicating the speed at which an ad's selling power is delivered to market/depleted and provides this knowledge to customers in an easy-to-use software tool (Outlook Planner).

Many years worth of basic research on split-cable studies establish the ARS Persuasion measure as more predictive of advertising-caused sales than liking, memorability or media weight and provide initial measurement calibration of the ARS Persuasion metric for new and established products.

1984
In conjunction with Vanderbilt University (David Stewart, David Furse) and the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), a landmark study is published identifying which strategic and executional content elements influence the sales effectiveness of TV commercials. This research continues to this day as the foundation for the only "validated" drivers in the industry (ARS Visual Validated Drivers).

1970s
New Product Awareness, Trial and Usage studies indicate that an ad's ARS Persuasion score is more predictive of trial than media weight or memorability, bringing measurement validity to the industry.

1974
ARSgroup purchased and a new company (research systems corporation) is formed with Reginald Collier as chairman and Margaret H. Blair as president.

1971
First ARSgroup session is conducted, and first systematic approach for ensuring measurement reliability in the industry initiated (ARS Automatic Retest).

1968
Scherwin Research Corporation is acquired by an Indiana firm and the ARSgroup division begins development of ARS (Advertising Research Service).