The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has announced a new initiative which will measure the Australian community’s perception of advertising issues and content.

Global market research and consulting firm Ipsos will conduct ongoing quantitative and social intelligence research into the Australian community’s perception of advertising issues and content.

It will then provide the AANA with quarterly results which will form the basis for the Advertising Sentiment Index (ASI). The initial results are expected to be released in the last quarter of 2018.

This will be the first time the Australian community’s sentiment on advertising content has been measured on an ongoing basis at an industry level.

The results will help inform the AANA’s advertising self-regulatory code development agenda and will complement Ad Standards’ ongoing research into the Ad Standards Community Panel decisions.

The research results will be published on a quarterly basis and be made available to AANA members.

AANA chief executive John Broome (pictured above) said: “The AANA | Ipsos Advertising Sentiment Index will provide our members with insights to what the Australian community thinks and is concerned about when it comes to advertising content.

“As custodians of the self-regulatory system, we need to be sure that advertisers are informed of community expectations in relation to socially responsible advertising.

“This is the first time we will regularly measure what the Australian public thinks about current advertising content.

“We chose to partner with Ipsos in developing the first Australian Advertising Sentiment Index due to their extensive experience, depth of knowledge and reputation in developing innovative and comprehensive solutions and [we are] excited at our ability to provide AANA members with access to the results of the ASI.”

Ipsos managing director Liz Harley said: “We are pleased to be a part of this important project in partnership with the AANA to determine community perceptions of advertising.

“We look forward to working with the AANA to provide this important Australian research to its members and to better inform self-regulatory decisions.”