Introduction
Growing global competition, saturated markets and media fragmentation are putting more pressure on marketers to justify how they spend their marketing budgets.
Digital has proved to be a unique and flexible medium that can deliver across all areas of marketing communication and within the entire purchase funnel.
We’ve come a long way since the first online advertising banner was sold and displayed. What began with the humble fullsize banner has evolved into hundreds of online ad formats.
New media advertising offers multiple opportunities and benefits that traditional media do not; it is the ability to target audiences precisely and accountability through measurement that we are most concerned with in this white paper. Yet despite its measurability for direct response campaigns, digital is often misunderstood, misrepresented and undervalued in the majority of media plans focused on brand building and awareness campaigns.
As with any new frontier, running branding campaigns online offers both risks and rewards to the advertiser. Those who prefer to stay with their familiar and comfortable marketing plans risk not only missing out on today’s new media savvy audiences, but also in being out-performed by those who are already experimenting with digital brand advertising options.
There is a huge demand from the advertising industry for more detailed information, research and case studies that prove the strength of digital for online branding. This white paper is designed to provide useful evidence of how digital campaigns can support brands online by reviewing valuable and up-todate insights from the most respected market players and service providers in our industry.
On behalf of IAB Europe and the Brand Advertising Steering Committee, I hope this publication will help advertisers, marketers and agencies to understand the use and impact of online for brand campaigns.
Eric Urdahl
Chairman of IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Steering Committee
Executive Summary
For many advertisers digital is already a preferred channel for delivering sales-related and performance-oriented objectives; not only are results and ROI measurable, but they can be improved during a campaign. However relying solely on ‘click’ results to measure display advertising campaigns is misleading.
Put simply, the contribution display advertising makes to the majority of audience engagement is not recognised. This is particularly true for brand metrics and conversions and overall, for evaluating the effectiveness of online brand campaigns.
Even search relies on digital brand awareness campaigns. A quarter of conversions are search related and without supporting brand advertising, these direct marketing campaigns would be far less successful.
Display advertising affects the entire purchase funnel. It has been shown to be 20 times more likely to drive online behaviour than clicks can measure. Many studies from leading players and research companies in the sector have shown that display advertising has significant impact on brand awareness, brand perception and ultimately on sales, both online and offline.
Digital media consumption has not yet overtaken television as the most effective vehicle for reaching large audiences in a short period of time, but it is well on the way. Compared with television, online display advertising generates higher engagement and efficiency rates (based on the development of larger and more impactful ad formats). Creative rich media formats deliver engagement and ‘dwell’ better than simple banner ads. Video advertising has experienced significant growth in the past two years and can have a considerably higher impact on brand awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent than other non-video formats.
Targeting technologies can also make the most of user data, boosting advertising efficiency and effectiveness by controlling frequency in the target group. These techniques also add value through other means, including allowing essages to be tailored to specific audiences, limiting wastage and positively impacting brand metrics at lower costs than non-targeted campaigns. By comparison, traditional media are becoming less able to reach all audiences and specific target groups – such as younger consumers – across the day. Placing more emphasis on digital within the media mix has shown significant impact on brand metrics and sales.
