• by Masha Geller , April 7, 2003

In the beginning of September, Forbes.com told the world that it wouldn't charge advertisers for placements that prove completely ineffective. They called it a "brand increase guarantee" and the online advertising senate immediately divided into two camps - those who believed in the Internet as a branding medium and those who feared the outcome would brutally unmask the Internet's flaws. Well, the results are in and the believers have reason to gloat.

Yesterday, Forbes.com announced that they will soon begin running a print ad that will reveal the initial results of the brand increase guarantee program, based on campaigns with blue chip marketers like AT&T, Samsung, Acura, LG and BearingPoint - just a few of the advertisers who have taken advantage of the offer.

Forbes.com President & CEO Jim Spanfeller said the results underscore the company's "strong belief in the basic viability of Web advertising" to build brands.

The program grew out of advertisers' demand for ROI in online media. The offer was only made available to advertisers willing to spend $100,000 (enough for a measurable quantity of impressions) and run campaigns for two months before the tests were conducted to determine whether the advertising has worked. The guarantee was that the advertising would boost at least one of four brand metrics: awareness, message association, purchasing intent and brand favorability, as measured by Dynamic Logic.

According to yesterday's announcement, aggregated results of the program show a lift in each of the four brand metrics measured as follows:

Message Association: +28%

Purchase Consideration: +14%

Aided Awareness: +11%

Brand Favorability: + 6%

Spanfeller said, "We're proud to be the first that we know of to guarantee advertising effectiveness on the Web (or anywhere else for that matter), and we're especially pleased with these results."