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Archive for the ‘Advertising Research’ Category« Previous EntriesInternet Up, DM DownFriday, May 4th, 2012  The latest figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau show that expenditure on Internet adverts increased rapidly throughout 2011 to reach a record $31 billion for the year. This is an increase of 22% over 2010. Of this, display-related advertising revenue totalled $11.1 billion (up 15% from the previous year) and digital video totalled $1,8 billion (an increase of 29%), but the largest share of Internet ad revenue went to search campaigns – $14.8 billion, up almost 27%. Spending on mobile advertising, although constituting just $1.6 billion of the total spend, actually increased by a startling 149%. A separate study just released by Strategy Analytics predicts mobile ad revenue will reach an estimated $11.6 billion this year. At the same time, budgets for direct marketing were revised down in the first quarter of 2012, with the change being principally attributed to shifts in spend towards internet advertising. It should be noted, however, that according to this latest IPA Bellweather report, actual spend on direct marketing rose, in 2011, for the first time in four years (based on provisional data). Analysis of marketing budgets by medium for Q1  An Interesting Approach to AdvertisingWednesday, September 15th, 2010  “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” John Wanamaker’s famous quote certainly has more than a grain of truth to it. One of the ways companies attempt to get the most advertising bang for their buck is by trying out different advertising strategies. Obviously, depending on the strategy, the execution, the targetting, etc, these have varying degrees of success. Some will be repeated time and time again – by the same company and by competitor organizations; others will be deemed unsuccessful and fall by the wayside. A slightly unusual strategy is being tried by popular North American lager brand Sam Adams. Rather than highlight the strength of its brand name, it is actually emphasizing how small a market share it has. Is this is clever way of saying that they’re a national brand but have all the strengths associated with a locally-brewed product? Or is it commercial suicide? The article below, published by AdAge at the start of this month, makes an interesting read:
How Important is Advertising?Tuesday, August 17th, 2010  How much of the money spent on advertising is wasted? Although it’s a very difficult question to answer, advertising research goes a very long way towards measuring and tracking over time the effectiveness of any ad campaign. However, according to a new study by Satmetrix, only 2% of consumers trust advertising the most as a source of information when choosing a product or service. Almost half (49%) of respondents feel personal recommendations from family, friends or colleagues is the most trustworthy source of information. While this statistic is not surprising – word-of-mouth recommendation has always had an extremely positive impact – it is maybe a little surprising that so many more people (15%) find opinions posted online as that much more reliable than the 2% who trust advertising. While online message boards, forums, etc are meant to be an independent source of opinion, many people are skeptical as to how unbiased they often really are. The study, in fact, claims that some companies are wasting billions on attracting new customers through advertising when their focus should really be on keeping their existing customers happy. According to the study, poor customer experience has forced more than 10 million consumers to switch suppliers in the past six months. The principal cause of dissatisfaction to the point of switching is unfair fees or charges. A further 22% blame poor product or service quality. 19% move because of rude of disinterested employees. And, 12% leave because they feel they can’t get anyone to deal with their problem. Read more about this subject in our white papers and articles:
What, No More Football?Friday, July 16th, 2010  Reflecting on a month of non-stop football coverage, Alex Clements this week mulls over the effectiveness of high profile advertising and sponsorship. The World Cup is now over and things are, once again, returning to normal. Wives get their husbands back, kids get the right to watch TV back and the men are in recovery for another four years until the next World Cup. I will confess, I’m not a huge fan of grown men kicking a ball around a pitch (I’d rather watch grown men beat the life out of each other in a cage!). I did, however, watch a few games of the World Cup, including the England vs. Germany game, which was an interesting one to watch with Vanessa, my fiancée who, just to make things more interesting, comes from Wuppertal in Germany! Despite not really caring who won the World Cup, I found myself subconsciously supporting Spain in the final. The only reason I can think of for this is that I quite like visiting Spain on my holidays. The least I can do is support their football team in return for their hospitality. I’m quite easily distracted at times and my mind can wander to a vast array of weird and wonderful things. The example I’m going to share with you on this occasion came to me during this football (or “soccer” for those of you in the US) match between Spain and the Netherlands. As I watched the ball go back and forth between opposing players – and on occasion directly from one goalie to the other – my mind wandered as I noticed the multitude of banners advertising different companies around the pitch. There were banners for Adidas, Sony, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Budweiser to name a few. I sat there and wondered to myself, “How effective are these adverts?” I decided that some of these adverts must be more effective than others when using this platform to reach their target market. I praise the strategic placement by Adidas because it is a company that manufactures sports clothing, which is likely to be of interest to a considerable percentage of football fans who will be watching. Similarly, people watching the game on TV at home or in a public bar could see the banners for Budweiser or Coca-Cola and as a result think “I could really do with a Budweiser!” – just as I did! Unfortunately, however, I was sitting at home with no access to any Budweiser… Of course, this is the aim of the banner and I’m sure it works quite effectively. In my mind, I compared the effectiveness of the ‘drinks’ banners to that of ‘electrical goods’ banners which have used the exact same method to reach their target market. Let’s first think about the platform for advertising here: The World Cup final. A quick search on the internet suggests there were over 18 million viewers in the UK watching the game on British television. Before the game took place, FIFA expected an audience of 700 million worldwide to watch the final. Even if viewers turned out to be significantly fewer than this prediction, it would undoubtedly still reach a considerable number of potential customers. As a means of embedding your brand in the minds of your target market, I say this is a very effective way to reach millions globally. Maybe the decision to advertise in this way would be more straight-forward for companies such as Coca-Cola as they are presumably targeting anyone who drinks liquid – which I shouldn’t need tell you is a pretty high percentage of the world’s population! However, for companies that specialise in electrical goods – which are not necessities of life (don’t tell my fiancée I said that) – as high value and infrequent purchases, from a consumer point of view there is more at stake and a bigger purchase decision to be made. Such companies must assess who they are targeting and who they would reach by each method of advertising before deciding on a platform. At first, I questioned whether electrical goods companies would see as much return on investment as drinks companies would. Will people see these banners and think, “I could really do with a new TV”? My guess would be that the need for a beer would come before the need for a new TV, but then again, I was watching the game in high-definition on a 40-inch screen! Despite this, this approach still does the job of raising awareness and embeds the brand in the minds of millions. Not bad for something as simple as a banner with your logo on, is it? Not that a pitch-side banner at the final of the World Cup will be within every company’s budget, mind! I’ll leave you now with one final example, which truly shows how effective advertising and sponsorship can be. Domino’s Pizza sponsored television coverage of the World Cup and Britain’s Got Talent, and it has been reported that the company has seen sales rise to 237.1 million – an increase of 21% in the last half year leading up to June 27, making a £17.5m pre-tax profit. Even more impressive, sales were said to have been up 65% on the day of England’s only World Cup win, increasing by a whopping 333% during the hours the match was shown! To find out more about Domino’s recent successes, click here to read Domino’s Pizza Plc Half Yearly Report.
World Cup Advertising: Louder and Longer, But Will It Last?Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
For this week’s Thursday Night Insight, Oliver Truman kicks off with B2B’s first World Cup-related blog post of the summer. Well, it’s almost here. And don’t we know about it. The 2010 Football World Cup is upon us, and everyone’s got their knickers in a twist. Cue endless speculation about who’ll be in each nation’s team. Cue furious flag waving and shows of unbridled patriotism that would otherwise cause a diplomatic incident. Cue four weeks of shouting at the television. Cue the inevitable Thursday Night Insight analysis of what this all means. I’m sorry to go all “grumpy old man” on you here, but is it me, or does the run up to the tournament feel like it’s been over-done this time around? Like Christmas, the speculation and hype around the competition (and England’s ritual, quadrennial shaming in a penalty shootout) seems to begin earlier and earlier every time. The adverts get brasher, longer and more stomach-churningly jingoistic, and this year appears to be no exception. I am perhaps in danger of exaggerating my ennui at the situation, however. From a cultural and marketing point of view, events like the World Cup are fascinating insights into what advertisers try to do to switch us on. At least from a UK perspective, the theme in this year’s World Cup advertising – like Maradonna in the late 1990s – appears to involve an excess of everything. The recipe for a successful commercial, it would seem, is as follows:
At its heart, all of this jostling for position comes down to achieving awareness and interest in brands during a key time in the calendar for advertising. When all around you are shouting, shouting louder, longer and with bigger laughs is central to securing a share of voice. Of course, investment of this sort in marketing cannot come without accountability. Marketers must use research to understand the impact that advertising has had – Not just in terms of whether more beer, trainers or televisions have been sold, but also whether people’s longer term disposition to brands have been enhanced or damaged. Pre and post-campaign studies are one way of tracking brand health, but so too is tapping into what wags in the blogosphere, in forums and on Twitter have to say (not Wives and Girlfriends, by the way – the other meaning). Mining this publicly-available seam of insight is an emerging technique in consumer markets, and the world of business-to-business could well follow. Like a World Cup advert, I think I’ve gone on long enough, but I’ll leave you with a prediction for the tournament. We can all then come back here in a month’s time and guffaw at how wrong I was. Argentina to win it – not least because they’re my selection in the office sweepstake. « Previous Entries |
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