Mind the attention gap: How does digital advertising impact choice under low attention?
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether digital advertising can be effective despite consumer inattention, and how certain common combinations of ad characteristics increase or decrease ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention.
We found that ad exposure under low attention does increase brand consideration and choice. The greatest uplift in impact occurs when moving from non-exposure to incidental attention. Under incidental attention, emotive advertising was more effective than rational advertising, as was matching rather than mismatching an emotional appeal to a hedonic brand. Conversely, under divided attention, rational advertising and mismatching a rational appeal to a hedonic brand was more effective.
CitationSantoso, I., Wright, M.J., Trinh, G. and Avis, M. (2021), "Mind the attention gap: how does digital advertising impact choice under low attention?". Forthcoming in the European Journal of Marketing
Quantifying the target market for advertisers
Marketers who want to protect their brand’s share or grow it need to know who to reach and nudge with advertising. This paper uses continuous household panel data for 55 leading, advertised brands in 12 cpg categories to quantify their target market over different time frames and conditions (market type, brand size and dynamism). Results demonstrate that the customer base (brand penetration) must swell dramatically over time to maintain, let alone grow, market share. For stable brands, penetration typically doubles from its level in one quarter to a year, then again from one year to five years as brands continue to attract lighter buyers who underpin long run sales. Over five years, over a third of brand buyers are so light that they buy the brand just once, but such buyers are vital to sales and critical to growth. As well as quantifying the five-year target audience for brands across these conditions, we test the predictive accuracy of the NBD-Dirichlet as a benchmark. The implications for advertising and media strategy are detailed. The long-term lessons for targeting become clear – unless brands “target the market”, they have adopted a counter growth strategy.
CitationGraham, C., Kennedy, R. (2021). "Quantifying the target market for advertisers". Forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour.
Viewing Time as a Cross-Media Metric: Comparing Viewing Time for Video Advertising on Television and Online
The Media Rating Council recommends weighting advertising exposure by viewing time. Prior research shows viewing time has diminishing returns, implying that effectiveness equivalent to a 100% complete exposure could be achieved by a lower threshold. Results from four laboratory experiments, extending prior banner-ad research to dynamic video ads, suggest 75% viewed is a potential threshold. A second contribution identifies different viewing time distributions for television and online video, due to differences in ad avoidance. More television ads have viewing times exceeding the 75% threshold, and so are more effective than the typical online video ad. Online networks could charge fees equivalent to television ads for video ads that exceed the 75% threshold. A third contribution is the use of interval outcome estimation (IOE), which revealed asymmetric effects of viewing time and that brand familiarity rather than viewing time is the only sufficient explanation of ad effectiveness measured by recall.
CitationBellman, S., Beal, V., Wooley, B.,Varan, D. (2020) Viewing Time as a Cross-Media Metric: Comparing Viewing Time for Video Advertising on Television and Online". Forthcoming in the Journal of Business Research.
When Brands Go Dark: Examining Sales Trends When Brands Stop Broad Reach Advertising for Long Periods
Due to a variety of financial reasons, or change in strategic focus, sometimes brands stop broad reach media advertising for a year or longer. These long dark periods have not been subject to much study, so little is known about the likely consequences. This exploratory study addresses this omission by documenting the sales performance of 41 beer, cider and spirit brands that advertised on and off over almost two decades. Changes in aggregate brand sales are reported for the years when brands stopped advertising relative to the last advertised year. On average, brand sales declined immediately in the first year, and every subsequent year of advertising cessation. Decline was generally faster for smaller brands and brands already declining in sales prior to advertising cessation.
CitationHartnett, N., Gelzinis, A., Beal, V., Kennedy, R., Sharp, B. (2020) "When Brands Go Dark: Examining Sales Trends When Brands Stop Broad Reach Advertising for Long Periods". Forthcoming in the Journal of Advertising Research.
Net audiences: a comparison of the Sainsbury Normal Method and the Sainsbury Weighted Method
For almost nine decades, advertisers have relied on the Sainsbury Normal Method (SNM) to estimate net-reach where single-source data are either too expensive or unavailable. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no SNM validation studies have included catalogues, smartphone applications, websites, social media, or cinema. While few studies have applied the SNM across media, no study has addressed the limitation of the SNM, that is, the implied assumption of audience homogeneity. Given that audiences do differ by age within any medium, and across media, there is a need to incorporate audience heterogeneity into the method. The authors introduce the Sainsbury Weighted Method (SWM) which provides more accurate within medium net-reach estimations in 82% of the 9,680 cases analysed, with an average accuracy improvement for within medium net-reach estimations of 0.6 percentage points (or 13%). For across media net-reach, the SWM estimations are more accurate in 77% of the 968 cases analysed, improving the average accuracy by 0.5 percentage points (or 49%).
CitationAnesbury, Z., Driesener, C., Page, B., Bellman, S. and Sharp, B. (2020). "Net audiences: a comparison of the Sainsbury Normal Method and the Sainsbury Weighted Method". Forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Management.
Forecasting advertising and media effects on sales: Econometrics and alternatives
The contribution of regression analysis (econometrics) to advertising and media decision-making is questioned and found wanting. Econometrics cannot be expected to estimate valid and reliable forecasting models unless it is based on extensive experimental data on important variables, across varied conditions. This paper canvasses alternative, evidence-based methods that have been shown to be useful for forecasting problems. These methods are described with the hope that they are more widely used for marketing forecasting. The approaches include media and copy experiments, analyses of individual level single source data, and structured expert judgement.
CitationDawes, J., Kennedy, R., Green, K., Sharp, B. (2018). "Forecasting advertising and media effects on sales: Econometrics and alternatives." Forthcoming in the International Journal of Market Research.
Rethinking media age skews and the ability to reach younger consumers
This research investigates the importance of newer and traditional media for advertisers when targeting younger category consumers. For the first time, this study analyzes eight media for over a decade to compare the user profiles and reach of websites and social media with television, radio, magazines, newspapers, cinema, and outdoor. The results provide valuable insights into how to reach younger category consumers, a vital segment for brand growth. Overall, age profiles of newer and traditional media are largely similar and although cinema skews younger and newspapers skew older, they provide less reach than the non-skewed media.
Management Slant:
• Advertisers use different media to target specific audiences, such as younger category consumers.
• New and traditional media have similar age profiles but differ in their ability to reach age segments.
• Television remains the medium to reach all category consumers (regardless of age) both quickly and cheaply.
CitationAnesbury, Z., Bellman, S., Driesener, C., Page, B., Sharp, B. (2018). "Rethinking media age skews and the ability to reach younger consumers". Working paper. Submitted to the Journal of Advertising Research.
Benchmarks for Mechanical Avoidance of Radio Advertising
Radio is capable of unduplicated reach outside of TV’s prime time, thereby adding to TV-led advertising campaigns, as TV audiences are increasingly fragmenting. But studies over the past twenty years have wide-ranging results due to differences in geographic location, age of the study, and sampling method used (e.g. surveys vs. electronic recordings). Since little is known about how much radio advertising effectiveness is affected by advertising avoidance, this research proposes using the Persuasion Knowledge Model to explain the rate of radio advertising avoidance by channel switching, estimated using data from portable people meters. The study aims to provide clarity about how avoidance, as a coping strategy, varies across different dayparts (e.g., drivetime vs. daytime), content types (e.g. music vs. talk), and age groups. The results will provide benchmarks for US radio advertising avoidance and improve advertisers’ understanding of the differences in advertising exposure across TV and radio.
Keywords: Radio Advertising Effectiveness, Mechanical Advertising Avoidance, and Benchmarks
CitationMichelon, A., Bellman, S., Cohen, J., Faulkner, F. and Bruwer, J. (2017). "Benchmarks for Mechanical Avoidance of Radio Advertising." ANZMAC 1-4.
Is Once Really Enough? Making Generalisations About Advertising’s Convex Sales Response Function.
This article examines the generalizability of convex-shaped advertising response functions. Using single-source data, we anaiyzed the response functions of brands in four consumer goods categories. This study supports the prior finding that convex response functions are typical, but not universal. While the convex response function is found to apply across a range of conditions, more work is needed to understand measurement issues, exceptions, and boundary conditions.
CitationTaylor, Jennifer; Kennedy, Rachel; Sharp, Byron (2009). "Making generalizations about advertising's convex sales response function: is once really enough?". Journal of Advertising Research 49 (2): 198-200.
Can Brand Users Really Remember Advertising More Than Non-users?
Past research shows that advertising awareness is systematically higher among a brand's users than nonusers. This past research has been confined, however, to measures where a brand name forms part of the cuing material. The current authors' research across six different measures, which extends cues to execution and media prompts, shows the user bias in memory for advertising is not a measurement artifact. It is, in fact, a real phenomenon, occurring under a wide range of conditions. This has implications for creative design, branding, and pretesting, particularly with advertising that primarily aims to attract nonusers. It also has an impact on metrics for assessing global or cross-platform advertising.
CitationVaughan, K, Beal, V, and Romaniuk, J (2016), 'Can Brand Users Really Remember Advertising More Than Nonusers?', Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 311-320.
