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BUILDING YOUR BRAND
Insights, case studies
and research from the
Internet Advertising Bureau
1
Intro
Brands in a digital age
Understanding the consumer and the tools
to get you there
Brand-building in action
How online can drive brand engagement
Conclusion
I A B A N D MI C R O SO F T A D V ERT I SI N G R E PORT:
2
Introduction
from Guy Phillipson,
chief executive, Internet Advertising Bureau
I NTRODUCTION
rand marketers have
always used media to
tell compelling product
stories. Ten years ago
the key channels were
pretty much self-selecting but with
the exponential growth of digital
media and changing consumer habits
and attitudes, it’s essential that
advertisers choose the right media
mix to tell their story in the most
effective way.
a significant commitment to them. However, it would be
a mistake for us to say to advertisers: “Online is the only
place to be sir, put all of your marketing budget there and
then you will surely build your brand!” (Unless you’re a
Google, Ebay or Amazon, the few exceptions to the rule.)
Because integration really is the key.
Throughout my career at the Internet Advertising Bureau,
the medium has changed beyond all recognition, and
as a brand, if you’re not there already then you certainly
need to reappraise your strategy. Over the years through
research and best case studies we’ve been able to
champion those marketers who have demonstrated
that online is an immersive, engaging platform for brand
communication, whilst at the same time highlight to other
brands exactly what they’re missing.
Back when I was an advertising man, TV was often the
best place for brand campaigns, as we reached millions
with our audio-visual delights in a neat 30 second window.
Print, outdoor, radio and cinema were also excellent
partners in crime to help us tell these tales, and fast
became reliable – and reassuring – formats.
As online and broadband have evolved the medium has
become the perfect proposition for brand-building, whilst
some years ago when sites were static and the user
This report will go further. Whilst existing in a digital
age can present a challenge, we think we’ve provided
some helpful solutions, with a guide to understanding
your consumer (and the tools to get you there), the
best case studies and the IAB’s very own research into
brand engagement, as well as our landmark cross-media
research with Thinkbox. Throughout this book we’ll be
telling our own story about how to build your brand online,
and we guarantee a very happy ending.
experience relatively unrewarding, it wasn’t quite there.
Now we can say with confidence that the internet is
entertaining, enlightening, sociable and no longer confined
to the realms of banking and simple electronic mail. When
it comes to building brands each medium has its USP,
but one thing we know for sure is that when you add
significant online elements - such as rich media, video,
search and word of mouth to your brand story, then your
metrics do go up. In fact, whilst online video advertising
Engaging Con
sumers
is still in its infancy it has served to shift the paradigm
somewhat, as consumers increase their appetite for
consuming video content and present us with even better
storytelling opportunities.
In this new phase of online usage, the medium has
become something of a big red button – the channel
of choice for consumers to get more out of brands, to
access information, to play, to find out what other people
think of these brands and then if not buy, at least make
!
S
I
H
T
Search
3
I A B A N D MI C R O SO FT A D V ERTI SI N G R E PORT:
4
Brands in a digital age
et’s begin this section with
one of the most important
facts the modern marketer
needs to know. Pop-ups the intrusive, irritating and
irrelevant advertising format synonymous
with the early days of online - are all but
extinct.
According to the latest study from the IAB and PwC, in
2008, such interruptive formats accounted for just 0.4%
of all internet advertising expenditure, and this is a figure
that continues to decrease with each wave. That is why,
aside from within this solitary paragraph, you will never
find a reference to pop-ups within any IAB educational
materials, aside from recommendations that you never
employ this prehistoric marketing method. So lesson one
is that such impolite interruption is the very antithesis of
building your brand online – consumers crave respect,
control, and creativity they can relate to.
B R ANDS IN A DIG I TAL AGE
Building a believable brand
For some years now the Internet Advertising Bureau has
urged marketers to ‘unthink’ their brands. This means
performing a thorough reassessment of the structure of
their communications plans, to put online at the heart.
Advertising has changed, and digital has been the catalyst,
but possibly the most important conclusion to draw from
the rise of the medium is that it’s not just marketing that
needs to adapt. It’s your strategy, product development,
customer relations and even business structure that
require a much-needed makeover for an audience that,
thanks to the internet, we can now understand better
than ever.
The internet has revolutionised the way consumers gather
information about products and services, and with just
one click we can find out anything we need to know.
This means that the brand promise, and the service they
provide, co-exist online. Traditionally, you advertised in
one place and fulfilled in another, but with the internet this
now happens in the same place. For Chris Clarke, chief
creative officer at digital agency LBi, this means brands
in a digital age need to be ‘believable’, and to deliver on
their promises, adopting a new view of communications.
“For us, believability means ‘impress me’. Often clients will
talk about authenticity and trust, but believability is more
emotive, and the key to consumers’ hearts.” In Clarke’s
mind, this is what the marketing community needs to
strive toward.
Interactivity as the advertising ‘utopia’
Across the industry, particularly in 2008, we have seen
within many online disciplines - such as search, video or
behavioural targeting - a greater dedication to refining
processes, making practices more robust and setting
standards that will reinforce the integrity of the medium
and pave the way for more mature marketing. But
what does this mean for the future relationship between
advertiser and consumer? While, even in a time of
economic flux, monetary forecasts may be relatively
straightforward to make, predictions about the ways in
which consumers and brands will interact are incredibly
hard to make, as we remain undecided about the kind of
advertising utopia that we are all working toward.
‘The Connected Agency’, a report produced by Forrester
Research in 2008 provides an insightful look at the future
of marketing in theory. It suggests that all marketers and
agencies will, over the next five years, become a real part
of online communities, moving from pushing campaigns
onto the passive public to conversing with active
consumers.
And this is where interactivity comes in. Millward Brown
tell us that if someone sees a piece of communication
then there is – on average - a 20% take out of message,
if someone hears a piece of communication then again
there is a 20% take out of message. However, If they see
and hear the communications this rises dramatically to
70% and if they see, hear and interact then this goes up to
85%. And whilst online is not the only place for advertisers
to turn in order to achieve this interaction, its unique
characteristics do lend themselves to such engagement.
Toby Horry, head of planning at creative agency Dare,
believes that because of online, we should be thinking
about interacting with consumers in the long-term: “Digital
has an always-on aspect, it requires great commitment
from a brand.”
Keeping up with consumers
And of course it’s not just about the consumer/brand
relationship. Online, consumers talk to each other too.
“Digital is making everything advertising,” says Horry. “Any
experience you have of a brand you can tell people about,
therefore everything is an ad.” EA games considered
this after the launch of Tiger Woods 2008. After a fan
video posted on YouTube showed an apparent glitch in
the game - if Woods hit the ball into the water, he could
walk out onto the water and take a further shot there - EA
promptly responded. They created their own tongue-incheek video – which to date has received over 2.5 million
views on the video-sharing site - stating that in fact it
wasn’t a bug in the game, ‘he really is that good’.
Praveeta Singh, product manager for Tiger Woods PGA
Tour at EA Sports told Adwatch: “It was actually our
advertising agency that brought it to our attention; they
thought we could do something with it involving Tiger. We
looked at it and we thought it would be pretty funny, so
we gave it the go-ahead. One of the nice things was that
people saw the human side of EA.”
5
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
And in terms of how this has informed their future
communications strategies, Singh states: “It’s really
important as we look at our marketing list to reach new
marketing mediums. People are on the internet and one
of the things we consider is that [with personal video
recorders] people skip over commercials. You think about
all the things you’re doing in a day, you might not watch
TV, but you’ve probably been online. As marketers we’re
looking for different ways to approach our customers.”
Playing to online’s strengths
6
Brands in a digital age don’t just need to respond.
Their proactive marketing also needs to play to online’s
strengths in order to successfully reach their target
audiences and engage consumers. Indeed, the IAB would
rarely suggest that all advertising activity takes place
online, rather it plays a fundamental role in the broader
marketing mix. Gavin Reeder, head of digital strategy at
Quantum BLM, suggests brands need to fully appreciate
where online can add exceptional value before planning
their campaigns:
“Arguably the medium is not as effective as traditional
media at achieving reach and pushing a marketing
message, but it is for driving consumer engagement, and
if you need to make your brand fit. Online is great at doing
a job within an overall campaign, and getting a core group
excited about your communications.”
touchpoints and think about how you can effectively reach
your consumers at each.”
Display advertising can, of course, be an excellent way
to do this, and later in this report we’ll be presenting the
proof that, with the right creative, online display can drive
exceptional brand engagement with consumers. However
it is important to remember that with online, the same
tried and tested rules of traditional media communications
no longer apply. One challenge for brands today is that
consumers have increasingly short attention spans, and
will rarely go online with the sole intention of seeking
out advertising.
For example, a study from web
video services provider TubeMogul in November 2008,
measuring 23 million streams on six top video sites over
two weeks, found that after clicking play, viewers only
watch to the end of 5-minute long videos around 10% of
the time and only 16% make it through three minutes.
So whilst incessant interruption is not the answer, giving
consumers something they deem worthy of their attention
and time, is. As Reeder argues, “You’re usually limited by
a restricted time frame. Therefore you need to add to the
online experience, enhance it and make your advertising
useful, and don’t assume people will watch or interact with
your ad from start to finish.”
Making the internet work for your brand
Understanding this role that online plays will ensure your
internet-based activity complements the wider strategy.
Dare’s Toby Horry states that “you can’t just view digital
as a channel or a line on a media plan. Instead digital is
instigating a more fundamental change in the way that
brands are built and run requiring more interaction, more
transparency, greater speed of response and greater
generosity from brands to their customers. Not all of this
will necessarily be executed in digital channels but it is
digital that is provoking the change in approach.”
So it would appear that for brands in a digital age,
rethinking your strategies to make the most of online is a
no-brainer. But understanding online and the consumer
is the only place to start, and this should inform every
part of the communications process, as Chris Clarke from
LBi concludes: “If you want to be believable, you have
to understand everything: media, website and creativity
to make people engage. This should be a manifesto for
how brands should think. Often there is a disconnection
between website and marketing teams in-house, but
clients should consider them all together.”
The next section of this report will prove how online can
work at these various points of the customer journey,
identifying the unique selling points of each. Chris Clarke
from LBi echoes this, arguing: “Building a brand digitally is
not about thinking of the internet as a channel, or medium
per se, rather you need to consider all the consumer
As marketers we should no longer be daunted by the
prospect of putting online at the heart of communications
campaigns. Rather we should see it for what it is:
arguably the biggest gift that advertising has been given.
Understand online and you will ensure your brand is
always one step ahead of the competition.
7
Understanding the consumer
and the tools to get
you there
hat makes online special? Is it the immediacy of
your communications, its reach, the capability to
engage with targeted or niche groups, the fact
that you can harvest sales from that initial point of
interest all the way to the virtual cash register? Of
course, one of the internet’s unique selling points
is that it can facilitate a number of consumer activities, all at
the same time. From essential tasks such as managing one’s
finances and arranging travel to daily routines such as reading
news and emailing, as well as more entertaining pastimes like
watching video content and playing games, consumers rely on
the medium more than any other.
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
The extent of this increasingly sophisticated consumer
behaviour might at first make online seem too daunting to
some brand advertisers who like the certainty of knowing
how a medium works. Indeed, in the early days of online
the marketing community took some persuading; it
was placed into the ‘too difficult’ box and the poor user
experience associated with internet advertising, as well
as the inevitable dot com crash, led to a universal call for
proof and statistics of success. However, now the benefits
of online advertising have been realised and understood,
the possibilities of the medium become more obvious.
that online is used for a wide variety of reasons, all of
which involve some form of interaction with advertising
messages which can drive preference at every point of the
purchase path.
Entertainment and relaxation on the up
% Agree
Online Motivators...
Research/find information
8
What makes online such an exciting option is that it
enables us to fully understand the consumer: to monitor
their behaviours, to see where they go, how they group
and what their motivations are. The Internet Advertising
Bureau has long been educating the marketplace
about how to talk to your target audience in their own
environment, and identify exactly how they use the
medium to better communicate your brand messages.
This is because nothing in this realm is possible –
particularly not brand-building activity – unless you first
research this behaviour. The following chapter provides
those initial insights for you to begin the planning process,
and appreciate what it is that makes online different, and
such an exciting prospect.
Grouping behaviour patterns and analysis
Consumers are accessing the internet in huge numbers
every day. A beginner could assume that mass behaviours
take place that are easy to understand and advertise
around, an understanding which forms the basis for
traditional media planning. Whilst this is true in some
cases, increasingly with the huge choice of activities
available – and the online consumer’s ability to multi-task
– behaviour patterns are not as easy to group together
in such a way, and treat as a linear activity that makes
targeting as easy as identifying popular TV or radio
shows, or evaluating newspaper readership.
The complex nature of internet usage has turned
traditional advertising knowledge on its head. This is
mainly due to the interwoven nature of advertising with
all forms of activity online, which is unlike anything that is
seen in other media. Online is a direct response medium,
a branding medium, a sales channel and a communication
and information source all at the same time. Our own
research carried out in partnership with Thinkbox, shows
75
Communicate
66
Be entertained
56
Relax and unwind
56
Organise my finances & household
53
Great ideas and inspiration
47
Get some work done
37
Share information and content
31
Organise my social life
23
Merging of mindsets between TV and online consumption
(Source: TV and Online: Better Together, IAB and Thinkbox 2008)
Another thing to take into account when looking at what
people do in this new digital age is to understand the
amount of time they spend online. The internet now takes
up a huge chunk of people’s media time – 59% of people
go online everyday, with only 6% going online less than
twice a week. Once online, people are spending over an
hour a day on the internet, with younger people spending
over two hours a day.
Time spent online
On a day when you use the internet, for how long on
average do you use it?
Male
121
Female
99
15-19
136
20-24
141
25-34
132
35-44
103
45-54
95
55+
81
Average in minutes
(Source: BMRB’s Internet Monitor, wave 45, August 2008)
UN DERSTANDING T HE CONS UM E R AND T HE TO O L S T O G ET YO U TH ER E
This is a huge shift in behaviour. Within ten years, the
internet has become one of the most highly consumed
media – and is showing no signs of slowing down. Of
course, this is now also combined with the fact that, as
laptops and wireless internet becomes more popular, the
internet can be used while consuming other media – in
particular, TV.
Exploiting the internet to communicate
brand value: the brand-builders toolkit
The cunning marketer must use careful planning – as
with all media buying – to make the most of this diverse
platform and to understand consumer drivers. Here is a
list of ten things to consider before planning any online
branding activity:
1. Who are we targeting?
2. And what is the desired outcome?
3. Where are these people?
4. What time of day are they most receptive?
5.During what online activity can we get their
attention?
6.What other activity are we doing that they might
have come across?
7.How can the online part of our activity extend
this awareness and build on the online
opportunities that other media don’t offer?
8.What fits our brand and will help make it
stand out?
9.Which online tools are best suited for our
objectives?
10.What metrics should we be using to measure
my campaign?
When are you most likely to pay attention to
an ad you see online?
51%
43%
33%
16%
15%
9%
If it is relevant
to me
If it is useful
to me
If it gives me
money off
Source: IAB IAB
and Lightspeed
Research, 2009
(Source:
and Lightspeed
Research, 2009)
If it gives me
new and/or
exclusive
information
If it is
entertaining
If it adds
something to
my online
experience
Answering each of these in turn gives a framework
against which to plan any activity you are looking at doing.
Research by Lightspeed and the IAB in 2009 shows that
quite simply the more relevant your ad is, the more likely
people are to pay attention to it.
1. Who are we targeting?
This is the first important step in terms of fully
understanding the consumer mindset, and is not a task
that should be taken lightly. From both a media and
creative perspective – and particularly for a brand-building
campaign – extensive research is required into this target
audience. There are many different ways that you research
audiences, for example consumer panels such as TGI.net
or bespoke research at the start of the campaign to further
understand how people respond to your brand, and your
previous marketing activity. Quantitative research via a
consumer panel for example, can be undertaken quickly
to achieve a snapshot attitudinal profile of your target
audience, and focus groups (both on and offline) are also
an effective way of really getting to grips with what your
consumer wants.
You can even put yourself in your target consumer’s shoes
– what would they search for, what online communities do
they visit and what would this demographic expect from
advertising? One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can
make is to base their briefs on simple assumptions about
the opinions and behaviours of their target audience, when
the internet offers us such in-depth insights.
2. And what is the desired outcome?
Online is a highly responsive, interactive medium, but
this shouldn’t mean that every action possible should be
measured or indeed that any form of response should
be seen as a success for your ads. People can click on
a banner ad to go through to a microsite or a website.
They can go on to buy a product online or sign-up to
a newsletter, post a comment on a social network or
play with a branded game. Each one of these activities
may drive engagement with your brand, but for those
consumers who don’t click, you need to understand the
branding impact of the impressions served, as well as
analysing the campaign metrics for click-through rates and
further interaction with the campaign.
9
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B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
3. Where are these people?
Not just in terms of the sites they visit and their general
online behaviour but in terms of where they access the
internet, too. It goes without saying that online activity
during work hours is likely to differ to at-home, more
relaxing web browsing, and your creative executions
should consider this. Furthermore with the growth of
mobile internet usage, particularly amongst young people,
again surfing behaviour and mindset will be different.
Media planning systems such as the UK Online
Measurement Company (UKOM) will give geodemographic details of website users which will allow UK
marketers and agencies to analyse exactly where their
target audience is.
10
4. What time of day are they most receptive?
Fast food brands such as McDonalds and Subway
probably the best known users of day-part advertising
online, because they can target consumers before lunch or
dinner. Time of day in online is not often talked about but
it is often a useful way to analyse consumer behaviour and
hitting your target audience at the right time is a great way
to build your brand. Research tells us that people believe
they are more receptive to ads as the day progresses, as
their attention becomes less focused on other, important
tasks. The IAB/Lightspeed study shows at what time
people believe they are more likely to pay attention to
advertising.
5. During what online activity can we get their
attention?
Inevitably people have different objectives and ‘modes’ of
behaviour when they are online. Some of these are very
task-driven such as personal admin or communication
when advertising messages may not be particularly
well-received. Other types of activity which are more
entertainment-based offer opportunities to connect
with consumers while they are actively receptive to ad
messages that might add to that experience.
It is important to remember your consumer won’t be online
to seek out advertising, but that they will pay attention to
your ad if you ask them to at a time and in a place where
they are happy to be approached. Consumers need to be
encouraged to engage with you, and choosing the right
time to ask them is very important, whilst at the same time
not rudely interrupting their online session.
What time of day are you most likely to pay attention to an ad you see online?
54%
46%
18-24
45-54
24%
15%
10%
4%
15%
15%
11%
5%
Before 9am
Source: Lightspeed Research
(Source: IAB and Lightspeed, 2009)
9am - 12pm
12pm - 2pm
2pm - 6pm
After - 6pm
UN DERSTANDING T HE CONS UM E R AND T HE TO O L S T O G ET YO U TH ER E
Please indicate when you normally access the internet to do each of these activities
Before 9am
9am - 12pm
12pm - 2pm
2pm - 6pm
After 6pm
73%
68%
61%
60%
54%
47%
44%
33%
31%
26%
31%
29%
52%
51%
36%
32%
29%
33%
32%
45%
34%
34%
29%
25%
35%
25%
21%
14%
11%
Weekday
Weekday
Visiting social
networking sites
12%
Weekday
28%
24%
21%
23%
21%
15%
14%
11%
43%
9%
Weekday
Shopping online
(including autction sites)
Weekday
Weekday
Reading the news
Weekday
Weekday
Looking at sports results
Source:
Lightspeed
(Source:
(IAB andResearch
Lightspeed, 2009)
6. What other activity are we doing that they might
have come across?
People can tire of ads online in the same way that they
can with any other media
or seeing the same
18-24 – hearing45-54
marketing message around ten times a day will rarely
result in an increase in brand preference. In fact, having
too high a frequency can damage the impact of your
advertising.
15%
15%
years. From their Crème Egg activity based around the
‘here today, goo tomorrow’ strapline, to the promotion of
54%
user-generated content based on their
TV ads, and their
excellent response to the consumer-driven
Wispa revival,
46%
Cadbury is a brand that fully appreciates the power of
online to drive loyalty and a positive association.
24%
Online is also a great place to host the ‘exclusive’. The
internet is a place15%
not only for powerful advertising in
11%
10%
its own right, but also a channel which can be used to
5% from other media without
Likewise repeating
activity
4%
get consumers excited about your offline advertising.
adapting this to the online format may increase the
Sony Bravia, in partnership with their online PR agency
frequency of Before
which people
view your
but will not 12pm - 2pmimmediate2pm
9am
9am ad,
- 12pm
- 6pm
After - building
6pm
future
have spent years
a buzz around
necessarily lead to further engagement and awareness.
their TV ads even during the production process, and long
Online offers a variety of different ad formats that
before they were first aired.
advertisers can use to extend their offline campaigns, but
you must tailor the creative to the medium: increase its
7. How can the online part of our activity extend
interactivity, make the message more relevant, and invite
this awareness and build on the online opportunities
feedback or further information to extend the dwell-time.
that other media don’t offer?
This could include developing shorter or interactive online
videos, seeding useful or entertaining content via blogs or
The IAB knows, and has proved that online works well with
communities, or by using the various social tools available
other media, for example collaborating with Thinkbox to
online to focus on a character or aspect of the whole
explore the relationship between TV and online advertising.
campaign and build up a fanbase.
The results are discussed in chapter 5, and demonstrate
This has been seen mostly via brands with a definite
personality which they’re happy to develop online, and
Cadbury are one of the best examples of this in recent
the uplift that campaigns can achieve by using TV and
online together, as well as giving examples of how creative
work can be adapted online to extend, rather than repeat,
a TV campaign.
11
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
The online audience can be targeted with calls to action
that other media can not fulfil. People can opt-in to
databases and email communications. They can ask for
more information or can find out more about your products
and services through a website. This ability to offer extra
information and interaction is a big advantage. Often online
ad campaigns are used to drive traffic to sites to increase
awareness of new product launches, to encourage people
to join a database or a mailing list and to find out more
about offers. Online can be very effective at extending the
complete marketing campaign and providing interested
consumers with an easy and cheap way to find out more
about a brand.
8. What fits our brand and how will it help us
stand out?
12
As an agency or individual creative, you can use the
internet (and now mobile) for mass reach and to drive
awareness. The real power of the medium however lies in
its targeting, and the ability to cut out any wasted views or
interaction.
Fosters and their agency Play for example, effectively
promoted their new in-can bubble preserving widget to
a young male audience. They developed a viral concept
around ‘ride the scuba’ which used a live scuba tank
to replicate the action that the widget does to create
bubbles. A remote control scuba was submerged in a
tank full of Fosters and users could direct the tank to the
bubbles to try and kill them off. This was hosted on a
branded microsite to reinforce the brand engagement,
and on average users spent 12 minutes on the site
interacting with the content. Such extensive dwell-time
and exceptional interaction would not have been possible
via any other media. It was a highly targeted niche concept
that fit the brand and used online as a cost effective way
to reach the relevant audience with a fun and engaging
concept.
9.Which ad formats are best suited to your
objectives?
The IAB would always recommend that rather than treat
each online discipline in a ‘silo’, that you consider the
consumer’s total online journey and meet them in all
the relevant places. Too often we see an online display
strategy executed separately from the social media activity,
and the search strategy far removed from what your online
microsite is hoping to achieve. As such, it’s essential for
your agencies, and the teams within those agencies to talk
with each other to ensure that all your online (and offline)
communications are on the same page, singing from the
same hymn sheet and all manner of other clichéd business
phrases that may apply.
Moreover, you should not assume that all online tools will
be relevant for your campaign, and again an analysis of
your target audience will dictate exactly which internet
ad format you employ. The IAB/Lightspeed research
highlighted the vast differences between what different
age groups expect from their advertising online. For
example, the research found that newer forms of online
advertising are now gaining ground with the younger
demographic, with ads using sound and video, widgets,
in-game advertising and free gifts on Facebook proving
to be effective approaches. In particular Facebook gifts
and branded applications online are especially effective
with 18-24 year old respondents – 29% had seen and
sometimes interacted with an ad from either Facebook or
branded content across various other social networking
sites. As has happened with other online applications
such as social networking, this suggests that these
forms of advertising have the potential to become more
mainstream. Conversely, email advertising was found to
be effective for those aged over 25, with 34% of 25-34
year olds said they had seen and sometimes clicked on an
ad from an email.
In terms of promoting greater interactivity with your brand,
rich media formats are now an excellent choice. Creative
ideas online are becoming more sophisticated everyday
and the rise of new formats around social media and
online video offer a huge amount of choice to advertisers.
However, once again, not all of these will be the most
effective for your chosen audience.
A campaign that has successfully used interactive
elements to drive the creative concept is the award
winning ‘Talk to Frank’ work designed for the Department
of Health by Profero and i-Level which started in 2007
and is still running now. The campaign is aimed at getting
young people to learn more about drug use and online
has been used to extend the awareness campaign in
above the line advertising to drive interaction and provide
further information to the target audience. It showed a
full understanding of the audience and how they behaved
online creating MSN Messenger widgets called Frankbots,
a highly interactive website, strong media placement on
UN DERSTANDING T HE CONS UM E R AND T HE TO O L S T O G ET YO U TH ER E
teen brands online and seeding through social media
outlets. Rich media is often used on the website to show
graphic videos about how drug use can affect people. The
campaign theme has run for a long time and uses online
media to extend the messaging and reach of the above the
line campaign while reinforcing the ‘Talk to Frank’ brand.
Online was the key medium for driving interaction and
allowing people to ask questions of the service and find out
more about the subject.
10. What metrics should we be using to measure
my campaign?
The digital consumer is an untamed and at times
unpredictable beast, but with the right planning and
analysis, the online behaviours of your chosen target group
can be explored and the right media plan can be built
around this to target your messages at the right time in the
right place. Metrics are one of the cornerstones of online,
and these can be as detailed as you would like them to be.
Some examples of key metrics to look out for are:
Brand awareness research
When running a branding campaign it is important to
understand the impact that the campaign has had on
consumers. Brand awareness research is used in all
media to understand the uplift against exposure and other
brand metrics by testing the same group of people in a
before and after survey looking at the key brand metrics
after a campaign has run. This typically involves looking
at the same group of people asking questions before and
after they have been exposed to a campaign and then
measuring the uplift (increases in the relationship between
your brand and your consumers) against the before and
after group.
Research companies like DynamicLogic, Essential
Research and Q Media with a range of methodologies, all
offering unique insights can measure changes in:
• A
wareness: shows if there has been uplift in the number
of people that know about your brand or product.
• F
avourability / perception: shows if there has been a
positive uplift or change in consumer opinion.
• C
onsideration: shows if there has been an increase in
the number of consumers thinking about buying or using
your brand.
• M
essage association: shows if there has been uplift in
the association of a message to your brand. E.g. when
fuel companies advertise about their environmental
credentials.
This is currently the only way to measure the branding
impact alone and is unique in online measurement in that it
does not focus on any click through activity but purely on
the branding impact of the impressions served.
Frequency of ad serving
Measurement is now starting to look at frequency of
ad serving as well as reach in the same way that TV
advertising focuses on frequency and reach. New tools
are available that can help track how many times a unique
user was served a particular ad. This can help brands to
understand the optimum number of times to serve an ad
in order to achieve a click through if this is the desired
objective, and can allow them to see how often their target
group is being exposed to the ad.
Interaction and click through metrics
Click through metrics are very useful in setting targets for
the interaction you are expecting to achieve. Typically ads
will click through to a website or a bespoke microsite,
though measurement can cover activity that is done within
an ad format even if the user does not click through to
a website. A rich media ad with a video player built in to
the ad, for a film release for example, can measure how
often the video was launched, even if no-one clicked on
the ad. Other interaction metrics may be the number of
activities carried out on a microsite such as playing games
or watching video clips, the number of competition entries
received, the number of times a piece of content was
launched or the amount of people signing up for email
newsletters. These must be looked at in light of the fact
that a large number of people never respond to online
advertising though this does not diminish the branding
effects of the exposures served.
Impressions/unique users
The unique user metric gives brands an idea as to how
many people saw the ad. It can be cross referenced
against click through rates to get a more accurate view
of what the click through rate was against the number of
people who saw the ad rather than the number of times
the ad was served. The unique user measurement can
also be used in a more sophisticated way to get a more
accurate view of how many consumers within your target
audience you reached.
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Brand-building in action
rand-building is a highly complex, diverse process
which for many has taken years to nurture. For some
people, Coca-Cola is the real thing – you don’t know
why, but you are brand loyal and would never touch
Pepsi. Do they really taste that different? For others, Coke is the
devil’s drink – bad for you, over commercial and ethically unsound.
Yet the same marketing and brand building efforts have taken place,
for around 100 years.
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Some brands get there quicker, for example the meteoric
rise of ‘new brands’ Google and Amazon who did very
little in terms of self-promotion. What they did was to
quietly focus on what they do brilliantly and in turn
build trust.
If we assume that brand-building is based on engendering
trust, how can you do so online?
B R AND BUILDING I N ACT I ON
“I trust the internet”
In general, we tend not to dedicate too much of our time
to people or things that we don’t trust. Would you get in
a taxi if the car looked dangerous or the driver didn’t know
where to go? Would you eat food that had been cooked
by a chef with swine flu?
The internet works, and more or less does what you ask
of it. As such we have grown to believe that our internet
connection is almost indispensable and there are even
studies showing that people are more likely to give up their
TV than an internet connection.
Part of this trust is powered by the fact that the online
experience is user-initiated. Consumers are in control
and can do what they want, when they want. This
empowerment can pose a challenge for brands, but there
are also benefits to be explored. So, what do you need to
know to help build your brand online?
Brand tonality - Brands can accurately reflect their
values online because internet bandwidth can now handle
the creative executions needed to do so. A beautiful TV
ad was far more powerful five years ago compared to a
‘Flash’ generated animation. Now beautiful HD creative
can be experienced without buffering.
Creative Solution
• A
custom-built ‘Brit Trips Mash Up’ game was built for
Walkers
• Live Search played a critical role, providing clues to
mystery UK destinations
• Strategically placed co-branded ads drove visitors to the
game
• One randomly selected player from the top 50 ‘hi-score’
table won a weekend break every week
• The Homepage takeover and branding ads across the
MSN channels and Windows Live services together with
the game, extended the bold eye-catching themes of
the offline campaign
Results - The game increased engagement
• E
xposure to the site increased purchase intent by 18.8
percentage points
• When benchmarked against other microsite campaigns,
the Brit Trips campaign ranked ‘excellent’ for purchase
intent
• Exposure to the site increased the brand attribute ‘are
good value for money’ by 12.4 percentage points
* Research by Dynamic Logic
Below is an example of how Walkers Brit trips went
the extra mile with an online campaign by Microsoft
Advertising.
Advertising raises key metrics
Key objectives
•
•
•
•
Raise online ad awareness with target audience
Increase purchase intent
Increase Brit Trips participation using online channels
Allow consumers to acquire Walkers Brit Trips points
without purchasing crisps
• E
xposure to the Homepage takeover increased key
branding metrics:
• Online ad awareness increased by 15.5 percentage
points
• Brand favourability rose by 10.3 percentage points
• Purchase intent increased by 10 percentage points
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B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
• The Homepage takeover also increased key brand
attributes:
• ‘Are high quality’ increased by 15 percentage points
• ‘Are good value for money’ by 12.9 percentage points
• ‘Taste great’ by 16 percentage points
• ‘Are proud to be British’ by 14.1 percentage points
* Research by Dynamic Logic
Brand loyalty - With brand trust comes brand loyalty,
but online can be a fickle world. A consumer might trust
a high street retail store, but can quickly forget when they
are being beaten online for price. Email, exclusive deals,
SMS and search are all brilliant ways to keep your brand
values top of mind and remind consumers why they fell for
you in the first place.
16
Social media has fast become a mainstay of modern
marketing, and can drive brand loyalty and preference
with an online experience of exceptional quality. Word
of mouth marketing, forums, blogger outreach and buzz
monitoring can be great ways of getting involved in
conversations online – transparently of course – and giving
consumers valid reasons to like and respect you. For every
brand, there is sure to be a relevant online community or
forum that matches your target audience.
Social networks have also been great communicators of
brands, particularly in the entertainment industry. One of
the best Facebook examples seen is Paramount Pictures’
application for the movie ‘How to Lose Friends and
Alienate People’. This campaign went beyond ‘traditional’
movie marketing by building an application that re-invented
facebook’s functionality and imagined how the film’s star
would use the popular social networking site.
Paramount Pictures International and agency Picture
Production Company (PPC) wanted to promote new
movie ‘How to Lose Friends & Alienate People’ across
social media, especially Facebook, with the aim of
doing more than simply advertising the movie. With
‘Anti-Social Networking’ PPC tried to envisage how the
film’s protagonist, Sidney Young, would use Facebook
– insulting the false friends he encounters and mocking
the way the masses use Facebook, but also provide
an engaging application for anyone to enjoy. Within a
week the application saw an uptake of 4000 users. The
campaign was spread virally and received excellent
reviews in blogs (http://mashable.com/2008/09/23/losefriends-facebook) and PopBitch (http://www.lifehacker.
com.au/tips/2008/09/26/anti-social_networking_insults_
your_friends.html). The application can be viewed here.
http://apps.facebook.com/antisocialnetworking/index.php
Brand playground - Online display such as rich media
and microsites are one of the most interesting ways of
getting your brand some attention, and engaging with
consumers. They can offer an opportunity to understand
more about your brand, play, experiment and maybe
even contribute. Care must be taken that everything the
site does builds on what you are trying to say about your
brand. For example, don’t have a game on le of a brand
site is to ‘build’, not provide. There is plenty of free stuff
out there so make your content work really hard. A good
rule is ‘do one thing great’.
The Mazda Icon microsite on topgear.com is a useful
example of how brands can do this effectively. Mazda
wanted to promote their Mx5 Icon car, build brand
awareness, positively increase perception across a set
of key brand attributes and actively engage the users
of topgear.com. The brand also wanted to get users
interacting with them whilst still communicating the key
brand messages and building awareness. In order to do
this, a specific Mazda Icon microsite was built on topgear.
com, complete with a bespoke Mx5 game and voting
system.
The microsite attracted 932,473 UK unique users,
generating 1,792,841 UK page impressions. The game
was played nearly 4 million times, over 420,000 times from
the UK.
More importantly however, the microsite proved to be
a huge success in building the brand perception of
Mazda’s key attributes. There was an average increase
of 13% points across the board for every brand attribute
measured. These included key measures such as: positive
impression; value for money car; stylish; sporty; top
performing; and fun to drive car.
Video is also an incredibly rewarding online discipline, and
allows you to get your brand noticed amongst a wealth of
other marketing messages. An example of a brand that
has used video to build awareness is Transport for London
with their ‘Do the Test’ campaign by WCRS. Tasked with
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B R AND BUILDING I N ACT I ON
Case study, Video: InSkin Media
raising awareness of cycling safety, specifically how easy it
is for motorists to miss cyclists and to persuade cyclists to
make themselves seen. As part of an integrated campaign
including TV, press and online; WCRS created a TV ad and
used social media such as YouTube, delicious, community
seeding on facebook and cycling/motoring blogs to help
the campaign spread virally. After just 2 weeks, the online
version of the film received a total of 4.4million views.
1,500 comments on video sharing sites, 4 fan groups on
facebook, and reached 6th most viewed YouTube film in
the UK that month. The campaign also achieved 34,000
results on Google discussing the ad, succeeding £140k
worth of views for £20k, providing an ROI of 600%. The
videos can be viewed here www.dothetest.co.uk.
What is InSkin? InSkin is a video ad format that allows brands
to dynamically rebrand the media players of a growing number
of leading UK and European websites. The InSkin ad remains
viewable for the entire duration of the video view, giving
unparalleled dwell times per ad impression served.
Leading FMCG confectionary brand:
Key objectives:
• Build on goodwill and consumer interaction with the brand
• Increase passionate disposition towards the brand
A more tightly controlled use of online video saw a major
car manufacturer commission a test campaign on ITV.com
for its small car range using in-stream advertising around
ITV content. As part of the campaign, 155,000 video
impressions aired on ITV.com in May and June 2008. As
a result of the campaign, significant differences between
pre and post exposure were recorded for a selection of
key measures: purchase consideration rose significantly
to 36%; ten of the twelve brand attributes tested showed
significant improvements; “innovative”, “affordable”, and
“good value for money” each rose by over 10 percentage
points.
What’s more, the strongest scores were among those
respondents that had previously owned the car make
being tested. Each measure increased after exposure.
Two thirds felt they were good quality, reliable cars while
the score for them being innovative cars increased by half
to 38%. However, those that had not previously owned
that specific brand of car showed the largest increase in
scores post-exposure. Ten of the twelve brand attributes
showed significant growth with the cars being innovative
and affordable both nearly doubling, to 28% and 36%
respectively. Rhys McLachlan, head of broadcast
implementation at MediaCom said of the campaign:
“We’re delighted with the results. This research has
contributed immensely towards the construction of a set of
norms that we are now able to use to increase investment
into online video.”
• Deliver views of the full length video content
• Isolate effects of various forms of online video advertising
Media/Creative solution:
• Target 16-24 adults in high engagement ‘entertainment’
environments (watching video)
• Websites NME.com, thesun.co.uk, Tiscali.co.uk
• Use 15” second pre-roll (TV cutdown) copy alongside InSkin
(re-skinned media player ad)
• Isolate 3 groups of users
1. Pre-roll solus
2. InSkin solus
3. Pre-roll and InSkin combined (i-Roll)
• Upon click – opens InSkin expandable microsite which keeps
user on the site they were on
• Clicks on pre-roll solus drive to advertiser website, clicks on
InSkin and i-Roll bring up InSkin expandable
Campaign results (source ISAP and verified by 3rd party ad-serving):
• 1,783,741 impressions delivered across all formats
• 1,186,310 unique users reached
• 75,188 unique clicks on the various formats – 4.22% CTR
overall
• Average dwell time per InSkin ad viewed = 2 minutes 4
seconds
• Average dwell time on ‘combination’ pre-roll and InSkin = 1
min 40 seconds
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B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
Case study, Video: InSkin Media
• Average dwell time on pre-roll solus = 14 seconds
• E
ngagement on the combined pre-roll and InSkin 67%
higher than on pre-roll solus
• 6
0% of clicks on the InSkin ad came after the user had
viewed the ad for more than 45 seconds
• A
verage dwell time per user on InSkin advertiser microsite =
57.85 seconds
• A
verage view through of ‘full length’ video viewed on
microsite = 80%
• P
ercentage of users who went on to interact further with the
brand (enter competition, watch ‘making of’ video, go to
website), after watching the ‘full length’ video = 90%
Branding results (Brand research by Metrixlabs):
• Ad recall and recognition of the advertiser were higher
amongst InSkin exposed respondents
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• People evaluating InSkin creative were twice as likely to
regard it as ‘striking and different to other ads’ than the
average for online advertising (41% vs benchmark 21%),
• As-well as providing this cut-through, InSkin generated
significantly less irritation and more message clarity than
pre-roll alone
• Those exposed to either the InSkin or combined unit were
significantly more likely to understand the core campaign
message from the advertising than those only exposed to
pre-roll only
• The advertising led to 6% shifts in brand consideration vs
benchmark for online advertising 2%
• 24% of users said the InSkin ad had made them plan to
buy the product, vs 15% of those exposed to solus pre-roll
(benchmark 16%)
Striking compared to other online ads
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
FMCG Inskin and
pre-roll combined
FMCG Pre-roll only
FMCG Inskin and
expandable
Benchmark
I don’t know what I’m looking for
Consumers don’t always know what brand they want and
this is dramatised particularly with search. Searching for
winter boots, or skin care is an open invitation for brands
to say “I’m right for you – here’s the link”. Often search is
used as the ‘I’m ready to order’ part of the campaign, but
search can offer a great way to build a brand, sometimes
from scratch.
Search is often run alongside brand campaigns on other
media to capitalise on the spike in brand interest that
these incur. These can be tied in to the key terms used in
the advertising campaign. A good example of this was the
Orange campaign ‘I am’ where Orange bought the key
words ‘I am’ and experienced a huge demand for these
key terms on search.
Hitwise publishes the top 10 keyword terms in each
category and shows that for most categories brand
terms are the most popular search terms used. The top
10 search terms in the shopping category are all brand
names, as they are in the automotive category.
This concept of search as a branding tool is becoming
ever more relevant, as a piece of recent research from
Enqiro and IPSOS/Mori, commissioned by Google, shows.
Participants were each given identical search tasks and
then given a questionnaire to ascertain their awareness,
liking and purchase consideration of relevant brands.
This produced an understanding of how paid and organic
results work together in impacting brand metrics. The
research also analyses the importance of the position of
brand listings on the Google Search Engine Results Page
(SERP).
The results of the study demonstrate that consumer
exposure to a brand on a SERP significantly increases
awareness and also demonstrate that the resulting brand
uplift was not restricted to just awareness and recall of
an advertisers brand, but was also highly effective in
increasing “softer” more emotional brand qualities. In
FMCG for example the presence of search advertising in
the top sponsored position increased consumers declared
brand trust by 9% over the control group.
B R AND BUILDING I N ACT I ON
Case study, Video: InSkin Media
I trust you with my time
Whichever routes you choose, remember that consumers
want to trust your message – so don’t let them down. If
you promise a great experience, deliver it. If you offer an
exclusive with your online marketing, live up to this claim
and respect the online user. A consumer’s expression
of trust is the time they give you, so make the most of
it. Respect how long you have with them and deliver
brilliantly.
Conclusions:
• In terms of reaching 16-24 audience, online video is
extremely powerful as it drives high engagement and dwell
times around very visual media
• Pre-roll is an extremely important ‘interruptive’ method
of video advertising, which can deliver high reach and is
extremely good at conveying key messages in a short space
of time
• InSkin helps contextualize the advertising in terms of
reinforcing the message contained in the short-form pre-roll
t
e
n
r
e
t
n
i
m
a
ad, and drives high interaction rates
te
• InSkin stays with the user throughout their entire video view,
eliciting dwell times measured in minutes, and consequently
extremely high engagement levels
• Because 60% of all clicks on the InSkin ad came after
the user had been exposed to the ad for 45 seconds or
Engaging Con
more, we can conclude that this led to the unprecedented
sumers
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microsite video view and interaction rates – these were ‘more
considered’ and ‘high value’ clicks
This ad has made me plan to buy ‘product’
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
FMCG Inskin and
pre-roll combined
FMCG Pre-roll only
FMCG Inskin and
expandable
Benchmark
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The proof - how online can
drive brand engagement
t remains increasingly important to prove that online
display advertising can and does play a significant role
in client communication strategies beyond click through
– and that it is effective at driving engagement. The
following brand engagement studies undertaken by the IAB highlight
that online branding has a vital role to play in achieving successful
integrated branding campaigns and should be included in the
campaign media mix as a part of the whole planning process.
THE PROOF – HOW ONLI NE CAN DRI VE BRAND EN G A G EMEN T
However, before entering into a discussion about how
brands successfully work across media, it is important first
to consider the term engagement and what this actually
means.
It has become evident that engagement - whilst it remains
very much a buzz word in the current media landscape
- has a number of different meanings that are dependent
on a number of different variables. The word is commonly
used without referencing the type of engagement
being addressed. This makes providing a definition of
engagement somewhat problematic, given that there isn’t
a widely accepted or consistent explanation of what it is.
There are three common ways of looking at engagement
when describing the relationship between consumers and
different crossing points. These are described as:
• Media engagement
• Communications engagement
• Brand engagement
The holy grail for advertisers is for consumers to form an
attachment with your brand (be it either emotional, rational
or both). This is the essence of brand engagement.
Ultimately the aim of all brand communications and
marketing investment is to drive interaction with the brand
and – of course – increase sales. How this is achieved,
however, may vary. There are a number of different things
that can affect the extent to which a consumer engages
with a brand – ranging from communications such as
advertising, point of sales communication and PR as
well as customer service, product quality, performance,
experience, heritage, trust and so on.
It has commonly been inferred that effective ways of
developing brand engagement are to engage consumers
with media platforms and/or communications. By this
argument, if you manage to engage your consumer with
both the medium itself and the brand communications
you will be successful in achieving brand engagement.
Whilst there are still arguments for this approach, the
work that the IAB carried out with ævolve (formally Carat
Insight) challenged the notion that if you achieve media
engagement and communications engagement you will
therefore effectively achieve brand engagement.
To put this into perspective, think about whether you have
ever seen a great piece of creative for an advert that you
really liked, remembered and perhaps even interacted
with, but you were unable to recall which brand the
creative was for. aevolve identified this scenario in its own
effectiveness studies, thereby opening up the possibility
that just because a piece of communication can be very
‘engaging’ it doesn’t necessarily lead to actual brand
engagement.
Furthermore, let us consider media engagement. How
engaged can we expect or assume consumers to be
with a display banner ad, for example, when they are
highly engaged with the online medium itself (for example
by playing a game or interacting with non commercial
content online)? Consumers may be more likely to
engage with communications when they are simply
browsing. Further to this, ævolve stated that: “Sometimes,
high media engagement may mitigate against brand or
communications engagement”. What’s more, “the most
effective direct response campaigns tend to come from
media occasions in which consumers are less engaged
rather than more, because they are more willing to
‘engage’ with the ad when they are less involved in the
media content itself.”
However, on the flip side, research has shown that
campaign evaluations aimed at consumers who are likely
to be unengaged with brands or categories, consumed in
a comparatively passive media environment and featuring
uninspired creative, delivered strong positive effects on
sales and attitudinally. The insight is then, that an impact
can still be made at a subconscious level to the benefit of
the brand.
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B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
The methodology,
Marry Jeffries, ævolve
When ævolve started working with the IAB in 2006, the
effectiveness of online display advertising was judged
purely by click-through rates and impressions. The IAB
wanted to prove the value that online communications
deliver beyond the click; we wanted to prove that
advertisers can and should use online as a brand
building medium, alongside other channels.
Other studies had focused on online display advertising
in isolation, rather than as part of the total media
mix. These studies tended to focus either on how
people engaged with the advertising messages – using
diagnostic measures such as ad recall, awareness and
the like – or on how they interacted with the medium.
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What was lacking was an evaluation of how online
display advertising works as part of an overall
communications plan to affect how people engage with
brands. Was it capable of changing measures such as
consideration, preference, intention and advocacy, or
was it just an efficient means of eliciting responses?
ævolve’s pioneering research approach was the ideal
solution to answer the IAB’s questions – it would allow us
to measure the effects of all communications on brand
engagement, to isolate and compare the impact of each
medium without bias towards any particular channel,
Results
The four studies conducted were in the automotive, haircare, soft drinks and retail categories. We chose a diverse
range of sectors and target audiences where published
research was lacking.
Brand Engagement Study One –
Investigating the young mother’s
relationship with the small car market
Women with kids have a significant influence over
household spending and are therefore an important
audience for advertisers to understand. Aside from this
– women with children are not considered to be your
typical online audience and we wanted to demonstrate the
and without having to use unreliable diagnostic measures.
ICE is an unconventional technique that marries qualitative
and quantitative research to advanced statistical analysis;
it was created by ævolve to deliver genuine actionability for
clients, agency planners and media owners when planning
and implementing brand building campaigns.
Using this approach we measure the impact of both online
and other marketing ‘contact points’ on consumers’ brand
engagement directly and indirectly through key brand
associations.
The analysis:
• Identifies how marketing has driven brand consideration
and engagement.
• Allows us to estimate the relative power of different
channels.
• Establishes relative effectiveness of different creative
treatments within channels.
• Measures the relative impact of communications
campaigns with other brand interactions such as
promotions, trial and usage.
• Provides comparison of the impact of each brands’ own
marketing and that of their competitors’ marketing on
them.
internet’s relevance to all demographics. With this in mind,
the first of the four studies was carried out in the small car
market sector and examined a sample of 1,000 women
with kids. They had to have bought a car in the last three
months or be seriously considering buying one in the next
12 months.
The internet was the primary tool in the car purchasing
process – highlighted in both the qualitative and
quantitative research. Through attitudinal questioning
we found that three attitudes held the key to brand
engagement in this sector:
‘I like the shape’
‘This is a car for someone like me’
‘This is a fun car’
THE PROOF – HOW ONLI NE CAN DRI VE BRAND EN G A G EMEN T
Model of Brand Engagement
Seven key factors, made up of sixteen brand perceptions
Safety
Value
Isn’t too expensive to run
You get lots of extras with
Is expensive compared to other similar cars
Is it a safe car
Is it a reliable car
40%
45%
15%
43%
57%
6%
3%
Function
Has enough space for my needs
Is easy to park
Is a nippy car
34%
28%
38%
8%
Small Car
Brand
Engagement
7%
Stature
Is it really reputable company
50%
Is good name in car manufacturing 50%
Before 9am
9am - 12pm
12pm - 2pm
12%
73%
Ad Salience
You see a lot of ads around
Do good advertising
24%
45%
55%
Fun
Is it a fun car
Is it a feminine car
68%
60%
44%
33%
31%84%
26%
16%
14%
31%
29%
11%
Weekday
Weekday
Visiting social
networking sites
2pm - 6pm
40%
61%
54%
51%
47%
36%
Style
32%
33%
32%
someone
Is29%
a car for
I like the shape of
12%
45%
like me
34%
29%
47%
25%
34%
23%
21%
9%
Weekday
Weekday
Shopping online
(including autction sites)
Weekday
Reading the news
Impact of brand communications:
Online advertising has most impact
100%
We found that in the small car market, online delivered on
average 39.9% of brand engagement in the advertising
mix. This compares to 36.6% for press, 17.6% for TV,
3.9% for outdoor and just 2% for radio. TV appeared to
drive brand stature whilst online and press worked on key
model attributes. Both the qualitative and the quantitative
research showed that these women are more likely to look
for information and reviews about cars online than offline
(this being second only to personal recommendation)
and that online aids them in their car purchase decision
making process. They are therefore already engaged with
the online medium. The fact that these women have very
little historical information about the brands in this market
means they need a more in-depth level of information than
traditional media can provide. Therefore, online is having
a greater effect on their engagement, in this case, than TV
which is unable to provide the level of detail required.
23
28%
24%
21%
15%
14%
Source: Lightspeed Research
With the 25 statements broken out into seven engagement
factors we found that ‘style’ and ‘fun’ made up 64% of
brand engagement (the statement ‘is a feminine car’ was
also included under ‘fun’).
4
35%
25%
53%
21%
11%
Weekday
After 6pm
90%
39.9%
80%
70%
60%
50%
36.6%
40%
30%
20%
17.6%
10%
3.9%
0%
Online
Outdoor
Press
Radio
TV
Weekday
Weekd
Looking at sports result
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
Brand Engagement Study Two –
Investigating women’s engagement
with the hair-care market
Online ads & webpages together account for
35% of each brand’s effects
100%
100%
The second study, in the hair care sector resulted in a
very different picture – as you would expect taking into
consideration the differences between the categories.
The five brands tested in this sector were Herbal Essence,
Pantene, Fructis, L’Oreal and Aussie.
90%
90%
70%
70%
60%
60%
50%
24
We saw in the creatives that the display advertising
was very much about driving consumers to the brands’
websites. Brands were unable to showcase the extent of
their range on banner advertising and so needed to drive
consumers to their websites, where this information was
made available to them. The websites showcased the
range of products on offer and provided further information
in a very engaging way that was personal to users and
their specific hair type.
TV proved to be the greatest driver of brand
communications in this category, with an impressive 62%
of communications engagement driven by the medium.
Through visual aids and brand building, the TV advertising
proved to be successful at showcasing brands’ product
ranges and developing trust. Online also proved to be very
successful in showcasing hair-care ranges. Taking this one
step further by helping consumers to narrow that choice
down through interaction and tailoring makes it a very
personal experience.
8.5%
3.3%
50%
40%
Of all the communications’ effects on brand engagement,
display advertising contributed to 8.5% - admittedly, this
doesn’t sound impressive when you consider that display
contributed 40% in the small car market. However, when
online was combined with the brands’ websites, this
accounted for 35% of brand engagement. We found that
the display ads were very successful in driving women to
the brand websites - so much so that those who had seen
a brand’s online ads were 3.5 times more likely to visit its
webpage than those who hadn’t. There is also a logic to
the argument that online display advertising isn’t engaging
women on a huge scale in this particular market. Hair-care
is a very personal thing for women and the most important
factors contributing to their engagement with these brands
was ‘trust’ and ‘range’. These two factors combined
contributed to 43% of all brand engagement.
26.6%
80%
80%
40%
30%
30%
20%
62.2%
20%
10%
10%
0%
Net Cont - 5 Brand
0%
Brand webpage
Brand mag ads
Brand online ads
Brand TV ads
Brand Engagement Study Three –
Men’s engagement with the soft
drinks sector
The third study, carried out in the soft drinks sector tested
four brands – Coke, Coke Zero, Pepsi Max and Powerade.
In this sector ‘taste’ and ‘affinity’ were the two over-riding
factors driving 79% of all brand engagement. Online
delivered 24% of the gross communications effect on
brand engagement. TV delivered 43% and press, 32%.
Given that soft drinks are a low involvement category,
engagement across all communications is likely to be in
part achieved through resonance. Resonance is based
on the notion that there is a peripheral processing of
advertising messages largely seen in low involvement
sectors such a soft drinks. It is important to remember
though that low involvement doesn’t translate to
low impact.
Resonance is most often assumed to be delivered via
TV advertising. However, this study demonstrates that
online advertising can deliver resonance as well as any
other channel. On average, resonance delivered twice the
engagement impact of information.
Furthermore, taking into account the average percentage
of spend allocated to online in media plans for soft drinks,
we found that online advertising for soft drinks was three
times as effective per £1 of spend as the all media average.
THE PROOF – HOW ONLI NE CAN DRI VE BRAND EN G A G EMEN T
Online advertising works hard for its money
Online advertising works hard for its money
Online advertising for soft drinks is three times as effective
per £ of spend as the all media average
Online advertising for department stores is sixteen times
as effective per £ of spend as the all media average
30%
40%
40%
25%
30%
20%
15%
20%
24.0%
10%
10%
5%
8.5%
2.5%
0%
0%
% Ad spend
% of Ad effect
% Ad spend
% of Ad effect
5 brand average
Online advertising
(Source of the media spend: Nielsen Media Research Ltd. Jan 07 - Mar 08)
Brand Engagement Study Four –
Investigating female shoppers’
engagement with major high street/
department stores
The last of the four studies was carried out in the retail
sector. We tested five major high street/department stores
- Debenhams, Next, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer
and Woolworths, targeting women aged 30-50 who
had shopped in at least three of the stores in the last six
months who agreed that they ‘enjoy shopping in major
stores on the high street’.
Based on the above criteria, it is fair to say that these
women were very much engaged with this sector - and
in a very positive way. Therefore, for this audience, brand
engagement with the stores wasn’t just about the brand
personality but also very much about what those brands
could deliver to them personally.
On average, across all five brands, online display
advertising contributed to 40% of the gross
communications effect. This compares to 31% for press,
19% for TV, 8% for radio and 3% for outdoor. Further
to this we were able to work out that online advertising
for department stores was 16 times as effective per £1
spent as the all media average. Online proved to be a
very effective platform to achieve brand engagement in the
retail sector – more so than any other medium.
We found that messaging and how this was delivered
was key. These women needed to be engaged with clear
messages that were literal and not abstract. They were
engaging with content that told them what they wanted to
know in a simple, straight forward and creative way. The
message was clear to see from the creative. For example,
campaigns talked about a ‘new collection’ or something
‘exclusive’. In contrast to this, we found that where the
creative in other media was more abstract (and it wasn’t
clear what was being advertised), brand engagement
appeared to be lessened.
It also became apparent how important it is to ensure that
the website experience is a positive one for these women.
Website experiences had over twice the impact than the
brand’s own communications on brand engagement.
Overall ease of use of the sites accounted for half of this.
Brand engagement of the gross
communications effect across all four studies
100%
80%
Press
60%
Outdoor
TV
40%
39.50%
20%
36.8%
8.50%
0%
Small cars
(mums with U16
kids)
Hair care
(women 20-60)
Soft drinks
(men 20-45)
Radio
Online
display
23.53%
Retail
(women 30-50)
25
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
You can access the full results of all four brand
engagement studies on the IAB website at
www.iabuk.net/brandengagement.
Having looked in detail at how online can successfully
drive brand engagement alongside other media, let us now
look at how effective online is (both as a platform and also
from an advertising perspective) in combination with other
media - specifically TV.
TV and online – Better together
www.thinkbox.tv
TV & Online: Better Together
26
It is widely believed that advertising effectiveness can be
increased by using complimentary media to communicate
messages.
In recent times, the effectiveness of using TV and online in
combination has been much discussed – brought about
by high speed broadband connections and increases in
wireless and laptop ownership. Advances such as these
indicate the relationship between the two media would
be a highly complimentary one. However, until now there
hadn’t really been any research that backed this theory up.
In response, The IAB and Thinkbox joined forces to carry
out some research on the effectiveness of using TV and
online combined.
The qualitative element of the research featured
engagement diaries in ten households across the North
and South, an online discussion forum and in-home
observation of how people use and engage with TV and
online in a natural context.
Overall, the results gauged the effectiveness of TV and
internet advertising combined and how this can be
exploited by advertisers to greater effect.
Key findings
Almost half of the sample watch TV and go online at the
same time on a daily basis. This increases to 61% on
a weekly basis. Going online is second only to eating
for activities that people are doing whilst the TV is on
– demonstrating just how common this behaviour is
becoming for this group of people. Interestingly, we did
find that internet usage whilst watching TV tended to be
more relaxed – more chat, music, gaming, sports - with
consumers dipping in and out of both depending on
At least opens
once up
content. This
behaviour across the two media
No
a day
increasing opportunities for advertisers to reach audiences
36
across the two platforms.
47
Concurrent use of TV & Internet is becoming
3 mainstream
Less often
14
At least
once daily
Half now use
together
a week
“
With a laptop you don’t have to sit at
least once
one point, it’s more flexible andAtyou
No can watch TV whilst you’re on
a day
it
The research encompassed both quantitative and
qualitative stages in order to gain a holistic view of how
both media work together in UK marketing campaigns.
The quantitative stage used a demographically
representative online sample of 3,011 respondents who
all had both digital TV and broadband internet access.
The restrictions we set at the recruitment stage meant
that the sample represented around a quarter of the UK
population (the most ‘tech- savvy’ of the UK population)
– ensuring the findings were future proofed and providing
an indication of how future media consumption and
consumer behaviour is likely to develop. The research
featured advertising from three major brand categories Automotive, FMCG and Finance.
”
(Pre-family, female)
36
47
“
I sit with it (laptop) on my knee,
At least once
No
a day
all night sometimes...
watching TV
and
3
14
Less often messing around online
36
“
(Pre-family, male)
47
At least once
a week
”
With a laptop
you don’t have to sit at
3
one point, it’s14
more flexible and you
can watch TV whilst you’re on it
Less often
”
At least
(Pre-family,
female)once
a week
““
With a laptop you don’t have to sit at
I sitpoint,
with it’s
it (laptop)
on my and
knee,
one
more flexible
you
all night
sometimes...
watching
TVitand
can watch
TV whilst
you’re on
(Pre-family,
female) online
messing
around
(Pre-family, male)
””
“
I sit with it (laptop) on my knee,
all night sometimes... watching TV and
messing around online
(Pre-family, male)
”
THE PROOF – HOW ONLI NE CAN DRI VE BRAND EN G A G EMEN T
on missed programming, although having the control to
‘watch what they wanted, when they wanted it’ was also
important to them. Content not yet seen on UK broadcast
TV was also cited as a reason, with a quarter claiming this.
A further 53% claimed to have viewed TV/film content
online via broadcaster websites and 45% claimed to have
done this via YouTube.
This is second only to eating, for activities
whilst TV is on
More online chat, music, games, sports:
relaxed usage
Internet usage is genuinely during
tv programmes
Not surprisingly, researching/finding information (75%),
and communication (66%) came out as the top two
motivators for going online; and entertainment (80%) and
relaxation (73%) came out as the top reasons for watching
TV. However, what is important to point out here is that
the internet is increasingly becoming a destination for
entertainment and relaxation with 56% of people saying
that they go online for these reasons. This is definitely
something that we wouldn’t have seen a few years ago
when the boundaries between the two media were much
more defined.
Two thirds of the sample had watched TV or film content
via the internet. This was primarily as a way to catch up
We also found that sharing advertising online is an
increasingly popular activity with 60% claiming to have
looked for a TV ad online (or the ad’s soundtrack) and 22%
claiming to have sent a TV ad (or a link to one) to someone
else online.
Case studies
We evaluated six campaigns in the online survey and have
permission to showcase the results to four of these –
Honda, Churchill, Cadburys Creme Egg and Lynx. You’ll
find the in-depth results to each of these in the research
section on the IAB website. However, for all six brands
researched, and across all statements, the pattern was
very much the same with both media driving brand metrics
beyond what they can do in isolation.
TV & Online Together Create Stand-out and Familiarity
% Agree
All Brands
Seen TV only or online only
Seen both
Seen neither TV nor online
= Significantly
higher
71
67
= Significantly
different to
group who have
seen neither TV
nor online
77
63
53
48
33
I feel like I know this brand
really well
39
29
Brand offers something
unique
I am familiar with this brand
27
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D ON L IN E
• There needs to be a high level of visual synergy
Further to this we found that harder metrics such as
‘likelihood to purchase’ achieved greater campaign uplifts
than softer metrics such as ‘I feel I know this brand really
well’. This is unusual in research of this nature where
softer metrics are usually easier to attain.
Our case studies were best practice scenarios and so
the findings reinforce the need to ensure creative synergy
between TV and online advertising. It is important to
remember that it is not simply a case of placing TV ads
online. We identified some elements for consideration
when planning campaigns across the two media in order
to utilise the benefits that the two media combined can
provide, in the most effective way.
28
• TV and online campaigns need to have a consistent
theme/message
• The strength of each media needs to be maximised
• R
ather than use online simply as a reach extension
medium, targeting those who have seen the TV
advertising to extend the message of the campaign can
be very successful
You will be able to see in the campaigns that we focused
on that these considerations were very much taken into
account. This is likely to have played a part in the success
of the uplifts against brand metrics that we saw from those
who had seen both the TV and the online advertising.
We know that both TV and online are very successful
media in their own right, fulfilling roles across all stages and
for both direct response and brand building objectives.
However, we have seen in this research that using the two
media together does create a powerful combination across
the whole process and increases agreement with talkabilty,
relevance, brand messaging and purchase consideration.
All Brands
Cars: Consideration raised in this category
% Agree: ‘I will place on a short list for consideration
Seen TV only or online only
Seen both
Seen neither TV nor online
= Significantly
higher
67
64
= Significantly
different to
group who have
seen neither TV
nor online
Uplift among those exposed
to both TV + Online:
51
39
34
29
Car category average
Honda
+25% points
+16% points
Conclusion
from Hugo Drayton
CEO, InSkin Media, [email protected]
he growth of online media over the past
decade has followed the path of differentiated
speeds: some developments (e.g. ubiquitous,
always-on broadband and mobile connectivity)
take much longer than we expected; while
other behaviours (e.g. use of email) happen faster than
expected. Digital media, mobile telephony and the internet
have changed all our business and social activities and are
now woven into our everyday lives.
29
B U I L D I N G YO U R B R A N D O N L IN E :
For our media industry, the changes are profound. At a
time of huge economic pressure, the cyclical nature of
the media and advertising business has been brutally
exacerbated by unprecedented systemic change; print,
television, radio, outdoor and direct marketing have all
been irreversibly affected by the power of online, by the
shift of power to the consumer, by the transparency of
information – the true democratisation of power, now –
vividly illustrated by recent political revelations in the UK
– available to all interested consumers (or citizens, as the
state prefers to style us).
Online advertising has evolved rapidly; Guy mentioned in
the introduction to this report that online is one of many
media for building brands. From my experience over the
past 15 years, I believe that, while using complementary
media can be the most effective brand-building mix,
online is now the single most effective, measurable and
adaptable tool for brand building.
30
From research referred to earlier, and from countless
other case studies, digital media has proved its mettle in
engaging users, driving improved loyalty, building both
awareness and – even more importantly – an ongoing
relationship and dialogue between brands and consumers,
enabling new processes where brand owners, agencies
and publishers can inform their own development in
harmony with their consumers’ attitudes and preferences.
Such deep engagement involves a massive commitment
– an ongoing and (to quote the earlier agency perspective)
‘believeable’ relationship.
Online video - in which InSkin Media specialises (along
with games and image galleries) - is especially effective
in increasing these touchpoints with consumer media,
within the restricted time that any user has for each
activity. Digital advertising wrapped around a media
player, effectively re-branding that content, increases the
consumer’s window of time with that brand; and with both
short and long-form video that equates to significant dwell
time, which drives advertising results. This is most usually
in a consumer’s leisure time, with multiple other diversions
competing for attention. The advantage is that, since
this is primarily entertainment, the opportunity to distract,
inform, engage, amuse and impress is far higher than it
would be during more prescribed business activity.
These high dwell times are prevalent in many of the new
forms of entertainment media, not only video but also
on social networks as well as audio (e.g. Spotify). The
opportunity exists for brands to exploit digital media to
strengthen their bond with consumers; we saw in the
Milward Brown survey that interactivity is a key driver of
consumer engagement. This might take the form of a
‘contagious’ piece of viral content, an attractive promotion,
or perhaps a polemic, dynamic blog. The important
aspect on which marketers must focus is in grabbing user
interest, providing a forum for interactivity, and ensuring
that results are visibly used in the brand and product
development.
In a tough economic climate, the temptation to move
budgets to direct marketing and performance-based
activity is strong. But, as also shown by CNN’s recent
‘Cross-Platform Advertising Study on Effectiveness and
Engagement’, brand investment, especially online but also
online and mobile mixed with TV, are significant influences
on both awareness and buying patterns.
As this IAB report has illustrated, digital, interactive
media outperforms all others in delivering understanding
of the consumer, immediately and effectively. Brands
and agencies need to grasp that opportunity to create
successful 21st century brand stories. Of course we must
work with and complement offline activity, but today’s
winning brand marketers will have digital activity at the very
heart of their strategy and delivery.
UN DERSTANDING T HE CONS UM E R AND T HE TO O L S T O G ET YO U TH ER E
29
32
Acknowledgements
The IAB would like to thank
the proud sponsor of this publication
Key Contributors
Amy Kean
senior pr and marketing manager
Sorcha Proctor
insights manager
Kieron Matthews
marketing director
Nicki Lynas
head of research
Chloe Chadwick
senior marketing executive
Jack Wallington
senior programmes manager
Amit Kotecha
project executive
Internet Advertising Bureau
14 Macklin Street
London WC2B 5NF
t +44 (0)20 7050 6969
f +44 (0)20 7242 9928
e [email protected]