• by Ken Liebeskind , July 19, 2001

With click through rates approaching zero, Internet advertisers are looking for other ways to measure online advertising, and perhaps another way to justify it.

Yesterday, the Internet Advertising Bureau and member companies DoubleClick and MSN unveiled branding studies aimed at demonstrating online advertising's branding capabilities. The message of the press conference, held at DoubleClick headquarters in New York and webcast at Doubleclick.net was that Internet advertising works as a branding medium, whether or not surfers click through.

The study came across as a desperate move to justify Internet advertising in the midst of a horrendous downturn, but it can also be looked at as a strong tactical move to enhance the medium by certifying its branding ability, which is obviously important for most forms of advertising.

All three companies conducted their own branding studies, reaching similar conclusions: that every form of online advertising increases brand association and purchasing intent. Even the 468 x 60 banner, the tired format that has received so much ridicule, reportedly works as a branding medium, though not nearly as well as the new IAB IMUs (Internet Marketing Units), the large rectangles and Skyscrapers, which generated higher branding numbers in all three studies.

The studies were conducted on a number of sites, including iWon.com, Msn.com and Snowball.com. Brands such as Coke, British Airways and Homestore.com were studied. A number of ad sizes and technologies (standard gif, flash and DHTML) were studied. Among the findings: Brand awareness jumps two percent with a standard banner, five percent with a large rectangle and seven percent with a Skyscraper. Purchase intent jumps as well, especially when ads are seen more than one time (according to the IAB study).

One problem with the studies is that they tested surfers immediately after they saw the ads, which says nothing about brand recall days or weeks after they've seen the message.

Representatives of each company announced the studies. DoubleClick's president of global media Barry Salzman distinguished between the Internet as a direct response and branding medium, which was the goal of the event, to look away from direct response click throughs toward branding.

Robin Webster, president/CEO of the IAB admitted that there is skepticism about branding before announcing the results of the IAB study.

Jed Savage, MSN's director of national sales, noted that rich media and the new IAB units work best on the company's Slate magazine site.

Marissa Gluck, a senior analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix, called the press conference a "much needed first step" on the part of the industry, which "needs to prove the value" of Internet advertising.

She says the studies are valuable because branding metrics are "a language traditional advertisers understand." Brand awareness, purchasing intent and the other metrics studied are traditional ones used for all media, so perhaps Internet advertising can move into the mainstream. But she said other branding studies, such as longitudinal ones, are needed to provide prospective advertisers with even more information.

Representatives of the companies noted that more studies are planned.