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It 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.
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:
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.
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 mediamix. These studies tended to focus either on how people engaged with the advertising messages – usingdiagnostic measures such as ad recall, awareness and the like – or on how they interacted with the medium.
What was lacking was an evaluation of how online display advertising works as part of an overallcommunications 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, 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 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.
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.
The methodology
Marry Jeffries, ævolveMarry Jeffries, ævolveWhen 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 mediamix. These studies tended to focus either on how people engaged with the advertising messages – usingdiagnostic measures such as ad recall, awareness and the like – or on how they interacted with the medium.
What was lacking was an evaluation of how online display advertising works as part of an overallcommunications 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, 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.
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.
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