Gemius and IIBR measured online campaign of Knorr (Unilver brand). The campaign’s main aims were to inform about new variants of instant soups tastes and to boost sales. The results concern two out of three creative lines (the first – more dynamic, the second – more static) in three formats (Brandmark, Double Billboard and Halfpage). Both creative line and format have important impact on advertisement effectiveness. Moreover, the way of combining them is important (more aggressive format such as Brandmark work better for less noticeable creatives, while static ones seem safer for dynamic designs). CTR does not have to correspond to message communication nor to persuasiveness nor to the impact on the brand image.Thus, both direct response and classical marketing indicators should be measured to fully assess advert effectiveness

1. Barbara Krug, Małgorzata Półtorak
IIBR (Gemius Group), Poland, barbara.krug@iibr.pl, malgorzata.poltorak@iibr.pl
Going beyond the click
Combining behavioural and declarative data in measuring on-line advertising effectiveness
Introduction
Main message communication
The importance of the Internet as advertising medium is growing. According to 40%
Halfpage Brandmark
PricewaterhouseCoopers report for IAB Poland the value of the on-line advertising market
grew up by 12% between 1st half of the year 2009 and 2010. But does higher spending 30%
mean better understanding of the medium impact mechanisms? Double Billboard
Double Billboard Halfpage Brandmark
Nowadays clicks and successful conversions to the landing page are still most commonly 20%
employed as measures of the campaign’s performance and used for its optimisation.
Indeed, they perfectly assess the advertisement effectiveness if direct response is the 10%
only objective. However, like every other, online advertising has also different goals: to
improve brand awareness and perception or to boost product purchase. Most often the 0%
level of meeting these goals is not measured at all. 0,0% 0,2% 0,4% 0,6% 0,8% 1,0%
CTR
First creative line Second creative line
Conversion to
Clicks the landing Figure 1. Advert noticeability (CTR) and main message communication
page
Second creative line better influenced the brand image in the formats of Brandmark and
Double Billboard (see Figure 2).
Elements of advertisement Brand Brand
awareness perception
effectiveness
Product
purchase
Brand image confirmation
50%
intent
40%
Research Questions 30%
Given the various objectives of Internet advertising, the questions appear that need to be 20%
addressed:
10%
• How does Internet advertising really work? What is the relative impact of the advert
format and creative idea in particular aspects? 0%
• Does better performance in terms of clicks imply higher persuasiveness? Halfpage Double Billboard Brandmark
• To what extent may the direct response indicators explain the advert effectiveness in First creative line Second creative line
more elusive aspects?
• How the total impact of the advert should be measured at the end of the day? Figure 2. Impact on brand image
Second creative line was more persuasive in aspect of purchase intent (see Figure 3).
Again, Brandmark and Double Billboard performed definitely worse for line two.
Methods & Data
Aiming to look for the answers for the above questions, we decided to combine in one
project both direct response (measured with site-centric approach) and more classical
Persuasiveness to purchase
marketing indicators (collected with the use of on-line questionnaires). The study was
25%
designed as an on-line experiment, a monadic test (one participant is exposed to one
advert only). 20%
In summer 2010 we conducted a case study. The evaluated campaign was of Knorr Nudle 15%
(Unilever brand) and took place on Onet.pl (the biggest Polish portal). The campaign’s
main aims were to inform about new variants of instant soups tastes and to boost sales. 10%
The total sample sizes in the research were: 621 210 (site-centric module) and 893 (on- 5%
line questionnaire). For the clarity of presentation, the results presented here concern
0%
two out of three creative lines (the first – more dynamic, the second – more static) in
Brandmark Double Billboard Halfpage
three formats (Brandmark, Double Billboard and Halfpage).
First creative line Second creative line
The most important indicators presented are as follows:
Based on site-centric measurement: Figure 3. Persuasiveness to purchase
• advert noticeability, operationalized as click-through rate (CTR = the percentage of With traditional approach based on direct response, the creative line with lower CTR
clicks in all the emissions) would be eliminated from the campaign. Yet, it was this line that turned out to better
Based on declarations: meet the campaign key objectives.
• main message communication (“The advert tells something new about Knorr Nudle
instant soups”)
• impact on brand image (“Knorr Nudle is a brand for young people”)
Conclusions
• persuasiveness to purchase the Knorr Nudle instant soups
Both creative line and format have important impact on advertisement effectiveness.
Moreover, the way of combining them is important (more aggressive format such as
Brandmark work better for less noticeable creatives, while static ones seem safer for
Results dynamic designs).
CTR does not have to correspond to message communication nor to persuasiveness nor
The first creative line occurred to be more discernable (CTR1) than the second one. Not to the impact on the brand image.
surprisingly, more aggressive format (Brandmark) attracted more attention (see Figure 1). Thus, both direct response and classical marketing indicators should be measured to fully
As regards message communication, second creative line was more effective. Format did assess advert effectiveness.
not matter.
1 in fact it was also more noticeable in terms of recall of brand advertisements