• by Kate Kaye , December 5, 2002

Business people don’t take purchasing decisions lightly these days, especially when it comes to contracting security services. One Internet security firm has discovered that online ads not only have helped boost brand awareness; they got decision makers to consider taking that all-important purchasing leap.

Research Justifies Objective

The advertiser (we’ll call it GuardCo) placed ads on washingtonpost.com in the hopes of spurring brand awareness and mind share among Business Decision Makers (BDMs). It just so happened that the publisher, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, had a clear indication that BDMs use the Web regularly and take notice of online advertising. A study it conducted with MORI Research and Nielsen//NetRatings @Plan found that 77% of BDMs surveyed said “the Web is the place to find out about new products and companies,” 47% of them claim they’ve been influenced by the Internet to make a business purchase, and 60% named the Web as the best medium to reach them through an ad campaign.

The Strategy

Over a two month period, GuardCo ran ads in Technology and Business sections as well as others that attract the target audience of purchasing decision makers such as the Nation section. As for formats, GuardCo went with “standard media stuff” like banners and skyscrapers.

After running some tests, the site validated its hunch that daytime is the best time to reach BDMs. Comments Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s director of communications, Don Marshall, “We’ve been talking a lot about day time being prime time. News sites attract lots of business decision-makers online during the day.”

The Results

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive works closely with online and offline brand measurement analysis company, Dynamic Logic, to assess advertiser campaigns. The results of Dynamic Logic’s online survey of those targeted showed a big boost in brand awareness, preference and perhaps more significant, purchase intent.

The campaign delivered:

• A 9% lift in brand awareness among all respondents
• A 14% lift in brand awareness in respondents from companies with 11 or more employees
• A 14% lift in brand “favorability” among all respondents
• A boost in brand awareness exceeding the industry average of 4%
• A 25% lift in purchase intent among respondents from companies with 11 or more employees

Those results, particularly the purchase intent numbers, were “much higher than expected,” notes Deborah Correa, director of creative and client services at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. “It’s easier to raise awareness and favorability than intent to purchase,” she continues.

Apparently, GuardCo thinks so, too. The company now has shifted its campaign focus from pure branding to partial direct response, and for the next four to six months, its ads will be running “pretty aggressively” on washingtonpost.com.