The new research metric, called Connections, promises to advise advertisers and media planners about how various kinds of media influence consumers through the chain that runs from exposure to purchase--now broadly defined as engagement. The ambitious initiative aims for nothing less than insight into the Holy Grail of marketing: what really leads to consumer purchase.
Connections evaluates the effectiveness of campaigns that employ up to 40 marketing channels, from 30-second spots to print to in-store to below-the-line.
Connections--which will be called upon to answer targeted questions about a particular marketing initiative's impact--was developed with the help of London-based research psychologists, and will employ measurement approaches from Millward Brown, a WPP unit that falls under the same holding company umbrella as GroupM.
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Connections promises to gauge four drivers of engagement with a contact point: notice-ability (how likely consumers are to pay attention), affinity (likeability and trust), relevance (interest level) and involvement (whether it leads to consumer action).
GroupM agencies Maxus, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia, and MindShare will all use Connections.
"By using Connections, marketers are for the first time able to measure and optimize consumer engagement across a multitude of distinct connection points, thereby developing more efficient and effective communications campaigns suited to this new era," said Irwin Gotlieb, GroupM CEO.