• by Ken Liebeskind , February 8, 2002

The excitement about New York Times Digital's surround sessions, which was high enough right after they were introduced in October, is approaching the stratosphere now, because there's evidence they work.

Yesterday, NYTD released results from the first surround session campaigns, based on Dynamic Logic AdIndex studies that were conducted during the campaigns.

The studies found that surround sessions outperformed traditional Internet advertising in four key performance metrics: brand awareness, brand favorability, message association and purchasing intent. The differences are staggering, with surround sessions achieving a 61% increase in message association, compared with 14% for traditional Internet advertising. Brand awareness increased 11% for surround sessions, compared with 4% for traditional.

The huge differences can be explained by the surround sessions’ ability to extend the advertiser's message throughout a visit to a website. Units play on every page as a user navigates the site, extending the message far longer than a single banner or other standard unit.

"With five or six times the frequency, there's a huge lift," says James Hering, Senior VP of Internet marketing at Temerlin McClain, the agency for American Airlines, which ran the first surround sessions campaign late last year. He also says surround sessions overcome the cluttered online ad environment, because they are the only ads on the page.

The Dynamic Logic AdIndex studies were conducted during the surround sessions with pop up boxes that asked branding questions. The same questions were asked of visitors who didn't get the surround sessions, which enabled Dynamic Logic to generate the branding statistics.

The studies were conducted on surround session campaigns by American Airlines and Nexium. The American Airlines campaign ran after September 11. "It was a critical stage and they had to get the American public flying again," Hering says. The campaign did that with a series of units that combined fare inducements with emotional messages. "We built on the heart theme deeper into the session with larger units," he says.

He says the campaign produced incremental lifts in brand awareness and relevancy. Temerlin McClain will use surround sessions again for American Airlines and other clients.

"We're thrilled surround sessions have proven to be effective," says Craig Calder, VP of marketing at NYTD. "When you combine it selling products and converting users it's a powerful one-two punch."

This is the first surround session study to be released. "We'll continue collecting data and get to the point where the numbers are accurate, it's not just a trend," Calder says.

His goal isn't simply to sell more surround sessions at NYTD, but to get other publishers to use them, too. He hopes surround sessions will be like CNET's large units, which started at CNET and became an industry standard. “Agencies won’t adopt it if it’s a one off for NYTimes.com,” he says, explaining why it’s a benefit to NYTD if other publishers use it.

“It will help the industry in general,” he says.

Surround sessions have also been used by Miramax and Verizon. Campaigns are scheduled for Audi, Saab, Cingular, WorldCom and three auto clients NYTD hasn’t named yet.