Case Studies

A research study [pdf] conducted in the UK between October 2011 and November 2012 by Tremor Video and the IAB UK has found that video-on-demand (VOD) campaigns can serve as an effective complement to TV advertising, increasing both brand awareness and message association, particularly among light TV viewers. In one campaign, 29% of survey respondents in the UK who watched TV and VOD ads correctly associated the brand with its messages prior to the brand's campaign, with that figure rising to 48% after the brand's 2-month TV and VOD campaign, higher than the 43.6% among those only exposed to the TV ads. Read more »

A study examining 5 leading advertisers who served the same creative message in both pre-roll and native advertising formats has found that the native videos drove higher brand lift in each of the 5 campaigns. The study, by Sharethrough, which utilized Nielsen brand lift metrics, discovered that pre-roll videos drove little to no brand lift. In fact, those exposed to pre-rolls were more likely to have a negative view of the brand than those who had not been exposed to the campaign. Read more »

New research finds [download page] that customers who participate in a brand's social community are likely to show higher transaction volume in the weeks following the event that spurred their engagement. Using Canada's AIR MILES rewards program as a case study, LoyaltyOne, which operates the program, combined 2-and-a-half years of social media interactions with actual transaction data for members identified by a disguised unique member ID, finding a "direct, positive, and tangible" link between social media activity and transaction volume. Read more »

B2B marketers are almost universally using social media to distribute content, but less than half rate it as effective, according to [download page] a new study from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs. Instead, good old face-to-face contact still does the trick, with two-thirds of respondents rating in-person events as either effective or very effective. That puts those events above other tactics such as case studies (64%), webinars and webcasts (61%), blogs (59%), and videos (58%). Overall, 12 tactics got at least 50% of the vote for their efficacy, with social media narrowly missing the cut, at 49%. Read more »

Content marketing is becoming increasingly popular among B2B and B2C marketers, finds a pair of studies released in October. 84% of B2B marketers are planning to increase their content marketing over the next 12 months, reports Optify [download page], while 9 in 10 B2C and B2B marketers and agencies say they believe content marketing will become more important in the next year, according to Econsultancy. Both studies find that lead generation is a primary objective of content marketing activity for B2B marketers. Read more »

Search rankings can have a significant effect on brand awareness, as well as a consumer's perception of a brand and subsequent purchase consideration, according to [registration page] a July 2012 study by Conductor. Read more »

While 33% of the most-engaging YouTube campaigns run under 30 seconds, only 11% of campaigns by volume run that length, per findings from a Yesmail Interactive study [download page] released in June 2012. And although YouTube campaigns rose sharply over the 3-month study period - by about 38% to 80 across all brands (3.5 campaigns per brand) - the average campaign engagement plummeted by roughly 66%. Read more »

Consumers researching online data about netbook computers for possible purchase are also considering other devices, according to analysis from Compete. Read more »

Oil company British Petroleum (BP) was mentioned far more frequently, and negatively, in blog and other social media posts following its April 20, 2010 oil rig explosion and leak than before, according to Sysomos. Read more »

Airing an ad both on TV and online greatly increases its effectiveness, according to new data from The Nielsen Company. Cross-exposure Sends Drug Customers to the Doctor In a Nielsen study of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, exposure on TV and online was more than twice as likely to prompt patients to ask their physician about the drug than on TV or internet alone. Compared to consumers who had only seen a TV ad for a specific drug, consumers who had seen both a TV and online ad were 100% more likely to ask their doctor about it. This percentage grew significantly higher when consumers were segregated by how recently they had seen the ad. Consumers who had been exposed to the ad both online and on TV in the last seven days were 157% more likely to ask their doctor about the drug than consumers who had only been exposed online in the last seven days. Furthermore, consumers who had been exposed to the ad both online and on TV in the last 24 hours were 212% (or more than four times) more likely to ask their doctor about the drug than consumers who had only been exposed online in the last 24 hours. Cross-exposure especially helps Brand Communication vs. TV Cross-exposure was particularly helpful to the brand communication of drug ads that were otherwise seen on TV only. Cross-exposed consumers had 103% greater brand communication than consumers only exposed on TV, while they had 91% greater brand communication than consumers only exposed online in the past seven days and 88% greater brand communication than consumers only exposed online in the past 24 hours. Cross-exposure Boosts Memorability Cross-exposure has a similar impact on an ad's memorability with consumers as it does on an ad's brand communication. Cross-exposed consumers had 100% greater memorability than consumers only exposed on TV, while they had 87% greater brand communication than consumers only exposed online in the past seven days and 89% greater brand communication than consumers only exposed online in the past 24 hours. The study also found that premium in-stream video ads which aired as part of a full-length TV episode online generated significantly higher levels of ad recall and brand recognition than other internet video, display or standard TV ads. Cross-exposure Increases Audience Being that the Nielsen results show the impact when consumers are exposed to a brand message across platform, the company wanted to evaluate the impact on the schedule if dollars were moved from TV to online. Because of the size of the overall campaign, moving dollars from TV to online only generated small amounts of incremental reach and effective reach. The larger impact of moving dollars to online is capitalizing on cross-platform media synergies, or the percent of sufferers who were reached on both TV and online. This figure more than doubled, from 7.5% of the patient universe to 18.1%. Consumer engagement proved a critical element influencing advertising effectiveness. Nielsen research indicates that when viewers pay more attention to a program (engagement), they also pay more attention to the advertising that airs within the program. Adding program engagement and sufferer development indices into the buying equation, the most effective network TV schedule included drama/adventure, situation comedy and reality programming, which in turn reduced the media cost by 35% per person. Viewers Tolerant of Online TV Ads Online TV viewers will accept up to 75% more advertising per hour than is currently programmed, according to a recent survey by comScore. In order to determine viewer receptivity to advertising when watching TV shows online, survey respondents were asked questions regarding their advertising tolerance. The questions were designed to assess the levels of advertising (based on one minute increments from 0-15 minutes) viewers would tolerate when watching one hour of TV programming on the internet. Results indicate that online advertising's "sweet spot" is between six and seven minutes per hour, 50-75% higher than the approximately four minutes per hour that is currently consumed by ads delivered online as part of TV content.