Wired Digital Inc. and Millward Brown
Interactive said that Wired Digital’s online properties now offer
“first-of-its-kind” online brand effectiveness research to advertisers for
less than $5,000 per campaign.
Unlike traditional measurement tools that chart effectiveness through
page views, clickthrough, and click rate, the new Brand Impact Studies
represent a new tool for marketers by measuring the impact of Web
advertising on brand awareness.
The research represents the culmination of 18 months of Web advertising
effectiveness studies conducted by Millward Brown, including the 1996
HotWired Ad Effectiveness study and subsequent 1997 studies for the
Electronic Telegraph, IBM, Ford and the Internet Advertising Bureau.
The research is available to advertisers on Wired Digital’s sites including,
HotWired and Wired News. The research service will be
available on HotBot, Wired Digital’s
search engine, this spring.
“With Brand Impact Studies, leading brands can now measure whether or not a
specific campaign is building their brand on a specific Web site,” said Rex
Briggs, vice president of Millward Brown .”This research is essential to
companies seeking to quantify the branding value of the Web.”
The studies involve talking directly to a representative cross-section of Web
users who have seen a specific ad campaign. Viewers are asked questions about
ad messages, brands and competitors before, during and after the campaign.
Results are then analyzed and tabulated.
“Clickthrough is fine for direct marketing, but it tells you nothing about
the branding value of the banner. This research closes the void in branding
metrics for Web advertising,” said Rick Boyce, senior vice president of
advertising and commerce at Wired Digital. “Wired Digital’s advertisers will
now have the ability to evaluate campaign performance on both direct response
and branding measures.”
As a tester of the method, Sharp Electronics measured brand awareness and
message effectiveness for the launch of its first online brand campaign in
the fall of 1997. Using the research, Sharp was able to ascertain that its
ads were effectively noticed by Wired Digital users, that the campaign had a
positive impact on key brand image attributes and which parts of its ad
banners were remembered, Sharp said.
“The Brand Impact Study was an opportunity to help verify our online
advertising strategy,” said Doreen Latargia, manager, marketing
communications at Sharp Electronics. “The information has aided us in
advancing our online strategies going forward.”
San Francisco-based Wired Digital said it is seeking advertisers who wish to
participate in Brand Impact Studies during the first and second quarters of
1998. The price is $4,900 per study.
WPP Group’s San Francisco-based Millward Brown Interactive is a division of
Millward Brown International, a research firm specializing in the measurement
of brand communication and advertising.
