Good online advertising provides brand impact

NEWS RELEASE

First New Zealand Online Advertising Effectiveness Study

Good online advertising provides effective brand impact

Auckland, 23 July 2001 - ACNielsen.consult has released the first New Zealand Online Advertising Effectiveness Study as part of a wider investigation of online advertising effectiveness in Asia-Pacific, across New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong.

In New Zealand, ACNielsen.consult tested 8 online advertisements for 5 major brands from the following companies - ASB Bank, Air New Zealand, Ford, Hewlett Packard and Toyota. The study completed surveys with over 4,786 consumers across 8 websites.

The New Zealand results released today show, on average, among those exposed to the ads, online advertising caused a 1.3 percent increase in intent to purchase, a 8 percent increase in unaided brand awareness and a 20 percent increase in ad recall.

“The results are pretty impressive - for an advertising medium that’s been beat up over the past six months as one that doesn’t work,” said Ramin Marzbani of ACNielsen.consult. “Of course, the notion that online advertising doesn’t work has had little research to support it besides click rates. Now we have some research that demonstrates the branding effectiveness of online advertising”.

The ACNielsen.consult analysis gives the first clear picture of branding return-on-investment for online advertising. Comparing a group of web users who were exposed to the advertisement to an identical group of web consumers who were not exposed to the online advertisement, ACNielsen.consult found that for every 1000 banner ad impressions, on average, good online advertising will make:

- 69 more people clearly remember seeing it and correctly connect the ad with the brand

- 30 more people have top of mind awareness of the brand
- 3 more people say they "Definitely will" or "Probably will buy" the advertised brand

The report also found that some ads dramatically outperform the average. Advertisements from the recent Toyota online campaign performed 88 percent better than the average ad tested in capturing user’s attention and communicating the brand message.

- 128 more people remember seeing it and correctly connect the ad with the Toyota brand

- 86 more people have top of mind awareness of Toyota

- 10 more people say the "Definitely will" or "Probably will buy" Toyota

“The data demonstrates that the much maligned online ad banner is an effective branding tool, but there are certainly some approaches to online advertising that work better than others,” said Rex Briggs, who lead the study. “Regardless of stock market performance of Internet companies, consumers are using the Internet more and more each day and marketers had better figure out how they are going to use the Internet marketing channel,” Briggs continued. “Many marketers are short changing Internet advertising, and these results indicate that leaving the Internet out of the marketing mix is a big mistake.”

A summary of the Study is available for download at www.acnconsult.com.

The full New Zealand, Australian and Hong Kong Studies are available from ACNielsen.consult.

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About Rex Briggs

Rex Briggs was retained by ACNielsen.consult to guide the development and analysis of the study. Rex Briggs is an internationally recognised expert in marketing and online advertising who has worked on all of the major online ad effectiveness studies from his first study at Hotwired in 1997 to the latest IAB studies. He’s won the Atticus Award for his work in Direct Marketing, the Tenagra Award for outstanding contribution to branding and was nominated for the prestigious John and Mary Goodyear award for best international research for his work in understanding digital marketing and online advertising. Mr. Briggs leads the company Marketing Evolution.

About ACNielsen.consult

ACNielsen.consult is a leading Australian Internet research company providing Internet industry analysis and measurement services to companies across Asia-Pacific.

About ACNielsen

ACNielsen, a company of VNU N.V., is the world’s leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of market place dynamics, consumer attitudes and behaviour, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries. Clients include leading consumer product manufacturers and retailers, service firms, media and entertainment companies and the Internet community.

For further information visit http://www.acnconsult.com

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