Commentary
For The Last Time: Yes, You CAN Drive Awareness Online!
- by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, June 24, 2009
The question popped up recently during a debate regarding the strategic allocation of media dollars. I wrote it down because it struck me as a fundamental question that needed to be addressed -- one I thought had already been addressed adequately, but maybe not.
First off, we have to be clear that the role online can play is first and foremost dependent on the objectives of the marketer. Marketer focusing their attention on driving consideration and intent find that online becomes a dominant component, because of its ability to provide engagement with the consumer. No other form of media is as capable of driving engagement effectively as online -- and the facts support this statement.
Of course, no one really debates the value of online at driving engagement, but funnily enough, people do still debate its ability to drive awareness. The debate centers on the ability of TV to drive a mass audience in a single sitting vs. the aggregate audience that can be amassed from an online site over the course of a day or week. I cannot argue about the impact that TV has; it is and always will be the most important vehicle for driving brand awareness, but TV generates a lot of waste in addition to its size.
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If you look at recent Nielsen Ratings for the week ending June 14, the top-rated show outside of the NBA Finals was "The Mentalist," reaching an audience of 11.6 million viewers (which breaks down to 8.7 million HH audience and a 7.6 rating/12 share). That is certainly a large audience, especially for TV in the summer time, but examine some of the top rated online sites and you'll be impressed as well. According to Quantcast, Google drives about 140 million visitors per month, with MSN at around 122 million, Yahoo at 119 million, and Facebook at 91.2 million. Those are very large audiences, but what I find even more interesting is that with Google, MSN, Yahoo and Facebook I can target the specific segment of the audience that I want, whereas on TV I cannot, because there's no addressability with TV. That means my effective targeting in online vs. TV is much higher, and therefore my waste is lower. It translates into being able to drive a more efficient awareness online than in TV.
Of course, a marketer can always make the argument that banners and full page takeovers are not as effective as a 30-second commercial, but I would argue that point as well. According to a recent Online Publishers Association study that tracked 80 online brand campaigns that were using standard IAB units, one in five of the exposed audience conducted searches related to the ads, and one in three visited the brand's site. That implies these campaigns were very well targeted, but it also demonstrates the power of online at driving consideration in the mind of the consumer. Once the users got to the brand sites, they spent an average of 50% more time than the average visitor, which further cements this perception of value. This seems to support the idea that you can generate not only awareness, but action, in the same units.
Online video may not yet be as dominant as it should be, but it's growing. More and more people are spending time online with video and more sites are offering video every day, so it's feasible to put together a recommendation for using online video across an aggregate of sites to amass an audience which is the same or greater than any single TV show. It's feasible to do a roadblock of online video across multiple partners that would reach 11.6 million people all at the same time; however, it's also probable to reach that size of an audience with a higher degree of targeting than you can achieve on TV.
I don't intend this column to be meant as a war being waged against TV (I still think highly of TV), but I do intend it to be read by the people still holding onto the falsehood that TV is the only way to reach your audience with impact. Having to engage in a debate about whether awareness can be had online is like engaging in a debate about whether the sky is blue; it's pointless.
I hope this article closes the book on the question of whether online can be an awareness tool or not.
Do you agree?
Cory, you pointed out some interesting issues and I agree with them. In your example of the NBA finals, you need to also realize this is not a typical TV show or audience. Few shows on TV have this type of impact. Too many networks are relying on reality TV shows and although this may seem a direction that is what consumers like, TV is still loosing a lot of its audiences. I believe that TV is not going to disappear, but online marketing is going to get stronger as we use more handheld devices to access information. Video news and video marketing are more popular and are paving a new path for online marketing. Who knows what the next "twitter" will be next year, but we do know what TV will be.
Cory,
good post. There is an additional consideration that should be included in the metrics measuring TV's capacity to create awareness. Because it is mass delivered (rather than more precision targeted via an online search) the use of TV media should included negative impressions created.
I consider myself a TV junkie (wrote my master thesis watching TV and all my PhD course papers watching TV and when I work at home I do it watching TV). What is driving me nuts with TV, increasingly is the irrelevance to me of the interruptions that advertising on TV creates. This makes me go out of my way to either change the channel or mute the sound. Furthermore, even the best advertising becomes an irritant than an outright insult after the third time in a 15 minute period.
So while Neilson rating can tell you roughly how many potential eyeballs may be exposed to a certain advertising during a certain televised product, they can't tell you how many bad (or worse) impressions have been created by the ad.
Whereas, as you've noted, online can provide much better information of engagement and actually much better avenues of delivering an appreciated value to exposed eyeballs.
john verdon
Hey Cory, as always, a great post this week. I agree that TV is still, and probably always will be the most impactful medium, but it's effectiveness is certainly less than it was, with no 'fault' to digitial stealing it away, but the advent of new technologies, such as DVR and Video on Demand that no longer requires the 11.6 million /12 share of viewers to actually see a single awareness campaign that sponsors spent millions of dollars to put into place, and I seriously doubt that DVR or VOD penetration has reached it's peak yet.
Not only is mobile and web's ability ready today to drive awareness, but in order to actually reach today's consumer, the emerging digital mediums MUST be used in every brand's mix if they want to remain relevant.
Hey Cory, as always, a great post this week. I agree that TV is still, and probably always will be the most impactful medium, but it's effectiveness is certainly less than it was, with no 'fault' to digitial stealing it away, but the advent of new technologies, such as DVR and Video on Demand that no longer requires the 11.6 million /12 share of viewers to actually see a single awareness campaign that sponsors spent millions of dollars to put into place, and I seriously doubt that DVR or VOD penetration has reached it's peak yet.
Not only is mobile and web's ability ready today to drive awareness, but in order to actually reach today's consumer, the emerging digital mediums MUST be used in every brand's mix if they want to remain relevant.
Cory - great post and I think it illustrates that today and tomorrow's consumer relies on the web (and mobile) to learn about brands and products. There's considerable research emphasizing that where you place your ads (what sites) and the share of voice you can achieve obviously and significantly impacts awareness. Wrote more here (linking back to your post) - http://www.adify.com/awareness-and-engagement-is-delivered-by-great-creative-on-vertical-ad-networks/
Thanks for an insightful spin.
With regard to TV though, I think there is a much more organized system for buying ad time than for online aggregated channels. Moreover, doesn't placement in online gaming bring about much more brand awareness than video - if you are going to spend online, why not make the natural fit?
How many fairies did you say can dance on the head of a pin? That dude over there wants to know how big are the fairies. The other one wants to know what they look like. Then there that chick-ee-poo wants to know the size of the pin and what those fairies are wearing. And yet another cougar wants to know how old they are. As Romeo said, " Mercucio, you speak of nothing."