• by Masha Geller , April 2, 2003

Yesterday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau kicked off its XMOS Road Show in support of the organization's cross media research to an impressively large audience of advertising pros. To the surprise of many, the event attracted almost 200 attendees to New York's Four Season Hotel.

The research aims to answer the question, "What is the optimal media mix to achieve marketing goals?" The IAB says marketers and advertising agencies can now begin to understand which advertising vehicles, at what frequency, optimally support campaign objectives. Using a research methodology endorsed by the Advertising Research Foundation and recognized by ESOMAR (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research), the XMOS study measures online advertising alongside offline advertising to determine the optimal mix and weight of each medium.

One year ago, MSN and Unilever released their initial XMOS results, followed by findings from McDonalds in October 2002. The latest round, unveiled in February, examined campaigns for Kleenex Soft Pack tissues and Colgate Total toothpaste that ran for six to eight weeks and involved television, print, and online advertising. The three key findings from the research are: 1) using a static budget, optimal results are achieved when online advertising is 10-15% of the marketing mix; 2) adding online advertising expands reach and coverage and 3) increasing online allocation produces better overall results by increasing the ROI.

The Road Show will present findings from the study in Chicago, Boston, Morristown, NJ, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Atlanta in the next two weeks.