Australia’s largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study
First Case Study: The Powerful Impact of Ad Placement
The latest findings from The Benchmark and Payback Series show advertising in news is more effective than advertising on social media platforms. When it comes to increasing brand and sales impact, ads placed in news consistently outperform both Facebook and YouTube. The findings come from The Benchmark Series, the largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study ever conducted in Australia. Commissioned by ThinkNewsBrands, and overseen by Dr Duane Varan, CEO of audience research lab MediaScience, the study included more than 5,350 participants and ran across 42 print runs and 252 websites which together created 6,037 unique brand exposures.
The study set out to understand the impact news platforms have along the path to purchase by measuring key metrics across short- and long-term memory as well as brand lift. The first tranche of the research launched earlier this year demonstrating the effectiveness of advertising in news versus run of the internet*. Dr Varan said: “Benchmark is the first study of its kind properly comparing news versus social media in terms of ad impact. The results fill an important void in understanding the larger media landscape.”
The latest findings of the research include:
Ads in printed newspapers** outperform Facebook ads of all types by up to four times Whether comparing print ads with display, six or 15 second Facebook ads, news offers a superior level of unprompted recall.
Combined news formats are twice as effective as combined Facebook formats Advertising across the combination of news in print and digital is twice as effective as Facebook display and video for unprompted recall.
Ads in news are as good as (or better than) ads on YouTube Ads in news deliver 1.7 times the unprompted recall of six-second YouTube ads and are on par with 15 second YouTube ads, whether on desktop or mobile.
News offers a stronger ROI than social media Additionally, The Payback Series research, conducted in conjunction with GroupM Australia and global marketing effectiveness consultancy Gain Theory, found news offers a greater return on media investment than social media
ThinkNewsBrands General Manager Vanessa Lyons said: “This research is a wake-up call for marketers: investing heavily in social media advertising isn’t the answer you’ve been led to believe. “Wouldn’t you rather reach your audience in an active, receptive state than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scroll? Delivering the strongest reach, greater memorability and immediate ROI, there’s simply no alternative for news.”
Second Case Study: Do premium environments deliver better results?
Think Premium Digital is an industry organisation designed to help marketers and their agency partners in the increasingly complex world of digital media. Think Premium Digital is a subdivision of the Premium Content Alliance.
Not all digital media is equal and now there’s proof. It’s the research we’ve all been waiting for.
The Benchmark Series, Australia’s largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study, proves definitively that advertising in premium media is more effective than run of the internet. Commissioned by ThinkPremiumDigital, The Benchmark Series has been overseen by Dr Duane Varan, CEO of audience research lab MediaScience.
Findings include:
- Premium matters Premium display and video placements drive 2.4x better recall and 1.6x brand lift compared to run of internet. This is even more pronounced for light buyers, the most important audience for brand growth with premium display and video placements delivering 3 times the recall and 2.8x the brand lift compared to run of the internet.
- Premium display = premium impact Premium display alone generates 3.5x the brand recall compared to display across the run of internet sites.
- Short-form video takes its rightful place Short form in premium environments offers 1.8x better recall and 2.8x the brand lift than short-form video on run of the internet. While short-form video in premium environments delivers 1.8x higher recall than Facebook video.
Find out how the research was conducted:
Third Case Study: Not all Digital Video is Equal
Think Premium Digital is an industry organisation designed to help marketers and their agency partners in the increasingly complex world of digital media. Think Premium Digital is a subdivision of the Premium Content Alliance.
Earlier in 2021, Think Premium Digital proved through MediaScience research that advertising in premium digital environments matters and is more effective for advertisers.
Now, we dive into the world of premium video to see how it stacks up against user-generated and social video. They set out to see the difference in sales impact for video advertising in BVOD and short-form video in premium environments in comparison to Facebook and YouTube.
Firstly, what do they mean by “premium digital“?
There’s digital and then there’s premium digital, a descriptor for environments that have ALL of the following attributes:
- Premium, professionally produced content
- A media brand that people know and trust
- Brand safe environment
- Meaningful scale for advertisers
In Phase one of the research it was proven that:
- Short-form video in premium digital environments delivers 1.8x higher recall than Facebook video
- Short-form video in premium digital environments offers 1.8x better recall and 2.8x the brand lift than run-of-internet sites
Commissioned by ThinkPremiumDigital, The Benchmark Series has been undertaken by Dr Duane Varan, CEO of MediaScience, an independent audience research lab. The new results from The Benchmark Series – Australia’s largest cross-media advertising effectiveness study – definitively prove that video advertising within premium digital content creates superior memory retention.
Building on from the results in phase one, phase two findings include:
- People enjoy the same ad more when it’s run in BVOD compared with YouTube or Facebook
- Ads in BVOD have 1.3x greater unprompted recall than any content length on YouTube
- Ads in BVOD deliver 4.7x better unprompted recall than ads in Facebook video
- Ads in BVOD deliver 2.5x better prompted recall than ads shown in run of internet short-form video
