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.
