A “cross media” study of 735,000 homes conducted last fall by Comcast Media 360 and TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA) found that TV and digital advertising work well together, though one type of advertising tends to do a better job of luring new buyers while the other is adept at driving sales from existing customers.
According to key findings of the multiscreen study, TV was the best at driving new customers, with 67% of the purchasing household uplift coming from those that were new to the brand or the category. Digital, meanwhile, secured more sales from existing brand customers.
“Television and digital are thus complementary in terms of both media and sales impact,” the study concluded.
For the study, Comcast Media 360, a unit that partners with brands on campaigns that span the operator’s TV, online, VOD and mobile/tablet platforms, teamed with a client represented by Starcom MediaVest Group. Advertising impressions across TV and digital were then matched and correlated to purchase data from TRA, TiVo’s wholly-owned media marketing and analytics software division.
Households exposed to the campaign and the purchasing habits of a control group that was not exposed were then tracked for up to 20 weeks after the campaign ended.
Among other findings, the study suggested that higher TV ad frequency led to better sales, with the “sweet spot” of that lift coming when a consumer was exposed to the ad between seven to ten times. The targeted cross media campaign also produced a 10% sales lift while a national campaign was underway, the companies said.
“This groundbreaking cross media study proves that utilizing purchaser-based targeting can drive significant sales lift and ROI for brand advertisers,” said TRA CEO Mark Lieberman, in a statement. “Advertisers today continually face the challenge of how to best allocate ad buys on television and digital platforms.”
“The study shows that cross-platform campaigns and measurement can be implemented at scale, and allow us unprecedented understanding of how multiple screens are working together,” added Starcom MediaVest Group EVP of innovations Tracey Scheppach.
“Technology is putting consumers in control of what, where, when and how they consume content, so it’s incumbent upon marketers to go find their audience and aggregate meaningful impressions across multiple video screens,” said Andrew Ward, group VP of national advertising sales for Comcast Media 360.
Source: Multichannel News, 9/19/13
