Accipiter Inc. and Millward Brown Interactive, an online
brand communication research firm, are partnering to offer advanced
advertising evaluation tools to Accipiter AdManager-driven Web sites.
Millward Brown Interactive’s Brand Trak studies will measure the impact of
advertising on a specific Web site.
Traditional media publishers have long provided simple pre-/postadvertising
tests to big advertisers, but Millward Brown Interactive’s Brand Trak
online advertising measurement goes further in assessing the value of an
online ad on a specific Web site, the company said.
By integrating Millward Brown Interactive brand measurement with Accipiter
AdManager, the companies said they have completed the puzzle of how to link
exposure information (such as frequency and recency) with comprehensive
branding impact (such as ad awareness, brand image association, and purchase
probability) in an affordable manner. Financial terms of the agreement were
not disclosed.
“In order to make the transition from traditional to online advertising
programs, advertisers need to know whether or not their ads work,” said Chris
Evans, Accipiter CEO. “By inexpensively measuring major branding metrics they
can now justify advertising on the Internet.”
Previous Millward Brown Interactive studies such as those for the Internet
Advertising Bureau (IAB), Berkeley Systems, and HotWired have measured the
impact of a wide range of formats including banners, interstitials, and
sponsorships. However, most advertisers want to know about their specific
advertisements on specific Web sites, the company said.
The Millward Brown Interactive Brand Trak studies build on these previous
studies by enabling AdManager-driven sites to provide any advertiser with
site-specific reports of online advertising impact across major branding
metrics including awareness, advertising recall, brand perception, and
purchase probability.
“The Millward Brown Interactive Brand Trak module is designed to be closely
integrated with AdManager to rigorously measure how frequency and time since
exposure variables impact the achievement of specific brand communication and
marketing objectives,” said Rex Briggs, vice president of San Francisco-based
Millward Brown Interactive.
The reports generated by AdManager chart key branding metrics allowing media
planners to determine which advertisement, what frequency, and on what sites
will yield the best return-on-investment, the companies said.
“Until now, the metrics to help media planners have been severely limited to
simply an impression count and clickthrough percentage,” said Briggs.
“Although the clickthrough is an important metric for direct marketing
efforts, it isn’t applicable in most advertising situations.”
“Consider the case of packaged goods company selling candy bars. Why would
any consumer seeing a candy bar ad click on the ad banner? Clickthrough is
irrelevant in this situation. What matters is that consumers see and
remember the ad and
are more likely to buy the product the next opportunity they get,”
continued Briggs.
Millward Brown said it may work with other companies, but at present is
working exclusively with Raleigh, NC-based Accipiter.
WPP Group’s Millward Brown Interactive is a division of Millward Brown
International, one of the 10 largest market research firms in the world.
