With the launch of this year’s AdReaction I thought it would be a good idea for us to hear from Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director, Media & Digital, Kantar Millward Brown, and architect of the study. In this post Duncan outlines why he believes the new study is so important.
Back in March 2016, the ARF launched “How Advertising Works”, a comprehensive review of how cross platform campaigns drive ROI. As part of that effort, Kantar Millward Brown conducted analysis showing that TV and online videos campaigns were more effective when the creative content was integrated and customized to each platform. Over the past two years that single slide has become a keeper, featuring in almost every client and conference presentation I have delivered. It’s important, because it emphasizes the need for an integrated marketing approach while acknowledging that digital is different from TV, and requires special care and attention.
However, like all good research, it has also raised further questions. Firstly, does this hold for other media beyond TV and online video? And secondly, HOW should brands create integrated yet customized campaigns? We set out to address these questions (and many more!) with our new global AdReaction study which launched yesterday The research has been a mammoth integration task of its own, bringing together a combination of marketer and consumer surveys spanning 45 countries, along with media effectiveness learning and creative copy testing. So what we have we learned?
Integration.
All media channels work better when they are integrated with the whole campaign and benefit from synergy effects. How you integrate can make a massive difference to campaign performance, and this is not a task which should be underestimated. Better campaigns use lots of integration cues, such as color schemes, visual identity and tone of voice in addition to the basics of the brand logo and slogan. The very best campaigns are also more likely to feature personality-based integration cues (e.g. celebrities, other characters and voiceovers). This is interesting because we know from our ad testing work that celebrities are no guarantee that an individual execution will perform well, but we see here that they can help unify campaigns. We also quantified the importance of a strong campaign idea for all creative elements: this improves campaign effectiveness by 64 percent, yet still almost one in three campaigns we test don’t have a clear central idea.
Customization.
For online video, we saw that customization from TV is not just about making online video ads shorter, or featuring your brand earlier to address potential skipping concerns. While both of these approaches help, specific online edits seem to make more difference to brand effectiveness. We also learned that customization helps most other media too, so it is important for outdoor ads to be customized based on where they will be seen, for example.
In any case, I believe this new AdReaction study is another really useful piece in the How Advertising Works jigsaw.
Written by Nigel Hollis,Executive Vice President and Chief Global Analyst at Kantar Millward Brown.