• by Kate Kaye , October 29, 2002

As more and more traditional advertisers venture online, Dynamic Logic is moving off.

The independent research firm today has unveiled its CrossMedia Research offering, allowing its advertiser, agency and publisher clients to measure integrated marketing campaigns. Fueled by advertiser demand, Dynamic Logic aims to help them determine the when, why and how of using the Web in the marketing mix.

“It used to be a gut feeling,” comments president Nick Nyhan. “My teenage daughter goes online, so I guess I should run some ads online. The instincts are good, but how do you quantify it?”

Dynamic Logic thinks its found the answer in CrossMedia Research.

Call it experienced innovation. After four years of evaluating Internet marketing strategies against traditional branding metrics and long-used control/exposed methodology, Dynamic Logic has built up a database of market norms which it hopes will facilitate its mission to bring discipline to cross media campaign analysis.

Rather than measuring cost benefit, or promoting one medium over another, CrossMedia Research will measure how “each medium moved the needle and how much,” according to Nyhan. Which audiences are most influenced by a particular marketing channel? What medium increased key metrics the most?

For instance, “TV may build great brand attributes,” considers VP of client development, Jeffrey Graham, “where online ads may build better awareness of sponsorship.”

Interest in the CrossMedia Research project which was initially spurred by Dynamic Logic’s client, The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), has come from myriad representatives of the ad industry: Forrester Research, the Advertising Research Foundation, Rex Briggs of Marketing Evolution and advertisers including Colgate-Palmolive, McDonalds, Kimberly Clark, ING and Johnson & Johnson.

CourtTV will employ the new research product to demonstrate the enhanced value of combining online and offline strategies to reinforce messages. According to CourtTV’s SVP sales strategy, Debbie Reichig, an unnamed retail advertiser will run a Q4 schedule on CourtTV’s online and television properties featuring banners, sponsorship and content components. Reichig says she hopes to prove after the five-week run that “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

To measure how well radio fared versus online with various audiences, Dynamic Logic tested its CrossMedia Research metrics out on a packaged goods advertiser running an integrated promotional sponsorship. The result? Online did better in the brand awareness and association categories, while radio hit the mark when it came to persuasiveness and intent to buy. The Web scored extra big with teens. But evaluating Internet and radio together made all the difference, proving that the integrated campaign was more effective than each medium working alone.

Dynamic Logic will sell its CrossMedia Research product directly to advertisers, agencies and publishers, or may be referred to clients by multiple media networks.

Now that advertisers no longer wonder if they should spend online, rather how much, the need to understand the role of the Web in overall marketing strategies is a natural progression. Opines Nyhan, “This type of research is a sign of maturity of the online ad industry.”