Web research firm Millward Brown invited leading Web publishers, advertisers, and agencies to participate in the Online Media Planning Research it has been commissioned to conduct on behalf of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
The objective of this new research study is to learn how different levels of
online advertising frequency affect brand communication online, and to achieve
a true picture of how frequency works.
The study will seek to answer questions such as “Is there an optimum number of
exposures before the ad ceases to be effective?,” “How long can advertisers
afford to be offline?,” and “Do people who have seen an ad more times forget
more slowly?”
In 1997, the San Francisco-based company conducted the landmark Online
Advertising Effectiveness Study, calling it the single largest ad
effectiveness study ever conducted in any medium, on behalf of the IAB.
“Millward Brown did an excellent job on last year’s Online Advertising
Effectiveness Study in proving that online advertising works. We chose to work
with them again this year because of their leadership, credibility and
significant understanding of marketing, both traditional and online,” said
Rich LeFurgy, chairman at the IAB and senior vice president, advertising, at
Buena Vista Internet Group.
“This year’s Online Media Planning Research will focus on how online advertising works, seeking to move beyond the ‘sites per flowchart’ approach that simply adds bulk to the media buy, rather than effectiveness,” said LeFurgy. “Once we’re able to better inform our members as to how online media works, they then can make even bigger strides into the traditional advertising media process.”
Millward Brown said it will conduct a carefully controlled, rigorous
experiment in the real-world Web environment (i.e., consumers will be exposed
to actual ads on real Web sites). A random sample intercept and evaluation
will query users on basic effectiveness measures such as ad recall, brand
awareness, reported response to an ad, attitudes toward the brand, and
purchase likelihood, as well as in-depth effectiveness measures like the
advertising’s impact on sales and its brand-building impact.
In this collaborative effort the IAB and Millward Brown Interactive plan to
include approximately 50 Web sites. Advertisers and ad agencies are invited to
participate as well. Benefits that participating Web sites can expect to
receive include an assessment of advertising effectiveness on their site and
demographic information on their users. Advertisers will benefit from shared
learning of how online advertising works.
Interested Web publishers, advertisers, and agencies are asked to send e-mail
to adstudy98@mbinteractive.com by July 31, 1998. Roundtable working sessions
led by Millward Brown Interactive will select the handful of brands to measure
in this study and will work with industry participants to prioritize issues
for analysis and interpret the results, which are scheduled to be released
this fall.
