Online ads driving user engagement- study

The findings form part of the latest Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) cross-media Brand Engagement study.

The fourth study of its kind, conducted by ævolve (formerly Carat Insight), set out to quantify the impact of display internet advertising on brand engagement relative to other communication channels, such as press, radio and TV.

Brand Engagement measures how different advertising channels help a brand build relationships with their consumers. 

By identifying an individual medium’s Brand Engagement strengths, advertisers can better tailor their messages and learn what consumers look for in terms of marketing communications and brand affinity.

With a sample of over 1000 women aged 30-50, researchers examined responses to the advertising campaigns of five department stores: Debenhams, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Woolworths and Next.  

The study also found that within this sector brand shop experience and competitor experience were much bigger factors in terms of driving brand engagement with consumers, which is to be expected given the long-term relationships consumers have with these stores.  Unsurprisingly, a retail brand’s own website was also found to have a significant effect. 

The research – using a qualitative and quantitative methodology – found that Brand Engagement for department store brands is determined, in the main, by four key factors, which in order of importance are: 

·          Affinity (24.3%) – whether the store has a good reputation, and is for ‘people like me’

·          Quality (19.3%) – that the store sells well known, high quality brands

·          Fitting one’s needs (16.5%) – relating to store convenience, and whether it suits a consumer’s particular tastes

·          Presence (14.7%) – a readily available, traditional store, with a national high street presence

Ad spend Return on Investment

The average online ad spend for all five brands in the study was just 2.5% of total media budget, which suggests that internet advertising – which delivered 40% of brand engagement across all communications – is around 16 times more effective than the monetary investment would suggest. 

To put this into perspective, in the second half of 2007, the retail sector accounted for just 5% of all internet advertising expenditure, whilst total consumer spending on products, goods and services online for 2007 was £47 billion.

Sector comparison

Based on the findings of all four brand engagement studies, the retail sector is in line with the small car sector in terms of the influence online has in driving consumer engagement with brands.  Previous studies have shown that for small cars, online drove 40% of total brand engagement, where for haircare it was 8.5% and for fizzy drinks it was 24%.  Copies of these studies are available from the IAB on request.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Whilst consumers’ online shopping spend continues to grow year-on-year, there still remains a great discrepancy in terms of how much retailers are spending on their internet communications.  We hope that this latest Brand Engagement study will help retail advertisers fully appreciate the brand-building capabilities of online, and in turn increase the medium’s share of their marketing budgets.”

Mary Jeffries, director at ævolve, said: “This study shows how retailers need to create a seamless brand experience for consumers, integrating in-store, online and communications experiences.  The internet is not just about transactional relationships: it has a critical role to play in driving consumers’ underlying emotional connection with retail brands.  Our unique approach to measuring and understanding brand engagement means that we have been able to clarify the impact of not only paid-for communications, but also how they work alongside all the other many retail touchpoints, both on and off line."  

The report will be presented in full and exclusively at Engage for Branding Building on the 16^th July at the CBI conference centre.

Methodology

ævolve tested a total of 38 communications from the five brands, this was broken down into online display (14), TV (8), Press (11), outdoor (2), radio (3). The study researched the attitudes of 1024 women, aged 30-50 years who had shopped in at least 3 of the stores included in the study in the last 6 months.  All agreed with the statement ‘I enjoy shopping in major stores on the high street’.  All had broadband internet access either at home or at work, and all had to use the internet at least 2-3 times a week, and at least 7 hours a week.