Marketers continue to invest in digital media, expected to account for about 60% of their media spending in the US this year. Newer channels (relative to legacy media) such as social media, podcast ads, and native advertising are seeing budget increases globally as marketers chase audiences amid shifting behaviors. But what drives brand lift in emerging media? Nielsen dove into its data [download page] to find out.
To arrive at its conclusions, Nielsen analyzed more than 1,000 US campaigns across podcasts, social media influencers, and branded content in order to identify the five brand lift drivers that most contribute to brand lift.
Two stand out as carrying easily the most heft. Leading the way is brand recall, which influences almost 40% (38.7%) of brand lift in these emerging media. Nielsen notes that “while this finding might seem obvious, it reminds us that the rules of good ad creative in traditional media are equally applicable in emerging media.”
Following brand recall is baseline brand awareness, which drives 37.5% of brand lift in emerging media. The analysts note that brand recall is reliant on audiences having at least slightly above-average baseline awareness (familiarity without any ad exposures).
Beyond brand awareness and recall, enjoyability is a key factor influencing brand lift, accounting for 9.4% of such lift in emerging media. The other key attributes to emerging media that drive brand lift are Captivating (5.5%), Relatability (5.5%) and Non-negative (3.5%).
These brand lift drivers have varying weights depending on the KPI. For example, baseline awareness has less of an impact in driving familiarity (31%) than purchase intent (40%) and affinity (43%). Of note, enjoyability is more of a factor in driving familiarity (15%) than affinity (6%) or purchase intent (8%), and may play an oversized role as audiences form opinions about brands. Likewise, Non-negative has a greater role to play in familiarity (5%) than in purchase intent (1%).
Meanwhile, brand recall is most important in fueling purchase intent (44%), while relatability has the most impact in recommendation intent (7%).
Taken in combination, brand recall and baseline awareness have the biggest impact on purchase intent, and the smallest impact on familiarity, in which the other attributes such as enjoyability, relatability and lack of negativity have a greater role to play.
Finally, the report indicates that brands with high baseline affinity have less room to grow, a somewhat logical finding. Instead, 2 in 3 brands with baseline affinity scores of 50% or less were able to achieve brand lift of at least 7 points via emerging media campaigns.
For more, download the report here.
About the Data: Nielsen describes its methodology as follows: “The emerging media brand lift research detailed in this report is based on analyses from more than 1,000 studies of measured brand lift from U.S. ad campaigns across podcasts, social media (influencer marketing) and branded content. The 1,000+ studies spanned 10 categories, including CPG, retail, automotive and financial services.”
