• by Masha Geller , July 18, 2001

Not that what I'm about to tell will bring an end to the debate of whether there is any value in online branding, but it might help. Warning: this might be a little longer than a minute (there are a lot of numbers I have to present), so stay with me.

In a joint presentation of research studies, the IAB, DoubleClick and MSN today unveiled their individual studies on the effectiveness of branding on the Internet at a press conference in New York City. All three studies strongly reinforce the fact that online advertising can be effectively used for branding.

According to the results, the standard 468 x 60 banner works to increase brand awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent. The new larger IAB Interactive Marketing Units (IMU) improve key branding metrics by an average of 40% across all three studies compared to baseline measures for the nine advertisers. And, rich media technologies such as audio, video, Flash and DHTML used with IMUs deliver greater impact and conclusively increase branding effectiveness.

Ad implementation makes a difference as well: interstitial ads, displayed during a transition from one Web page to the next, boost key brand metrics by an average of 194%.

Let's take it one at a time: The IAB study, conducted by Dynamic Logic, found that the new larger ad units (IMUs) are 25% more effective in lifting key brand metrics such as brand awareness and message association - even at only one exposure. The research also shows that additional exposures significantly increase persuasion metrics such as purchase intent. The research was based on 8750 respondents, four advertisers and 12 creative units.

In the DoubleClick study, which carries a high level of statistical significance with 153,455 total survey respondents, showed that across each online marketing unit tested, traditional brand measures including aided brand awareness, aided advertising awareness, ad attribute recall, and ad recall increased considerably. Aggregated results for three brands across each online marketing tactic tested, showed an 85% increase in aided advertising awareness. Banner ads increased brand measures by 56% and large rectangles by 86%. Interstitial ads increased brand measures by 194%.

Working with Dynamic Logic, MSN tested two campaigns with different creative formats and sizes for two advertisers, uBid and ShareBuilder. The study found that the Skyscraper creative size worked best, lifting brand awareness by 16%, four times the average lift among all campaigns Dynamic Logic has tested.

The study also found that interactive, DHTML units lifted awareness by 13%, greatly outperforming both the Dynamic Logic average and double the performance of the non- interactive creative in the campaigns.

"Based on these extensive studies including thirty sites, nine advertisers, 170,000 respondents over a two-month period the evidence is irrefutable that Internet advertising is effective in branding," concluded Robin Webster, President of the IAB.