With the threat of a recession in the air, we injected some confidence back into the minds of advertisers at our Engage for Brand Building event.

Wednesday, 23 July 2008

We invited speakers from across the digital marketing industry to share their knowledge, experiences and research with brand advertisers at this half-day brand building conference. The aim of the event was to help marketers understand how best to integrate online and mobile into their communication plans.

Once the IAB’s Kieron Matthews had dispatched some jokes and donned a limited edition IAB cap, he was joined by Mary Jeffries, of aevolve to present a joint piece of research. The Retail Brand Engagement study measured consumer responses to advertising campaigns from the following retailers: Debenhams, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Woolworths and Next. The findings demonstrated that online advertising for retail brands help deliver the greatest effects in the media mix by driving 40% of brand engagement, compared with press (31%) and TV (19%).

Next on stage was Sarah Parry of AOL. She discussed the consumer relationship with online. She outlined how "people emotionally respond” instantly on whether or not to disclose certain personal material when on social networking sites such as Bebo. Sarah went on to say that "we have a different relationship with online than we have to real life, would you give away details to the person sitting next to you on the tube?”

“Online video is ubiquitous, it’s everywhere” said Yahoo’s Mark Connolly, who presented his thoughts how video can raise awareness for FMCG brands online. He showcased their recent work with McCain Home Fries, where Yahoo! supplemented McCain’s TV ads with a 15 second pre-roll ad on their music section.

The research illustrated that the inclusion of online alongside TV advertisers has considerable influence on the following key brand metrics – 22 percent increase in ad awareness over TV only, brand favourability grew 13 percent against TV only and there is a 21 percent increment in the likelihood to purchase against TV only. This complements the recent findings in our combined research with Thinkbox called “TV and Online: better together”.

“People come to interact with brands; they are willing to involve themselves as they get something in return”, said Michael Dwyer from Pigsback, a member based loyalty and rewards website. He spoke avidly about FMCG brands in this area of the online space. A campaign with Baileys displayed the effectiveness of reward sites in attracting consumers - with advertising across the Pigsback site, in newsletters, along with Baileys TV ads and downloadable coupons. The campaign recorded 2 million ad impressions, 32,461 unique visits, 7,216 TV ad views and 8,026 coupons were downloaded.

Mark Ralph of Worth outlined how; fulfillment, a great shopping experience for customers, event and email marketing and a loyalty scheme were paramount to the success of the new website and online campaign for Lucozade Sport. He also predicted a future where consumers will give their user ratings on brands for others to view via video.

Mark Slade from 4th Screen Advertising introduced the advantages that mobile advertising can offer your brand. He discussed how surfing the internet on the “mobile phone has been made easier by the new ad funded model compared to the traditional model in which users were charged heavily to simply access the internet and download content”. It has meant people have been able to freely check sport results, map locations and email etc on the go. Research from a 4th Screen Advertising campaign with Tesco Mobile revealed that of Tesco's 1.5 million customer base, 60 percent are female, the average user age is 36 and 60 percent of users say they happy to interact with advertising on their mobile.

The final presentation of the day came from Måns Tesch of Lowe who was responsible for the rebranding of Stella Artois’s website. The innovative campaign set about keeping the heritage and values behind the brand, whilst also bringing something extra to engage consumers and “give them some reason to actually visit the site”.

The website contains interactive videos that take you back through the amassed catalogue of Stella Artois TV ads from over the years, along with puzzle games like ‘Le Defi’. Promotion around the new site was achieved via outdoor advertising in places like Times Square in New York, a blog and new videos that acted as film trailers in the cinemas.

Overall StellaArtois.com saw a ‘1000 percent increase in unique visitors since launch, each spending almost 6 minutes on the site on average’. Almost a thousand positive reviews via blogs across the internet were received and there was a strong increase in consumer perception across the internet.

All the speakers from the day agreed upon the combination of online, TV, radio and outdoor advertising as crucial elements in building a successful brand with consumers. The event was a huge success in bringing useful information and generating ideas for advertisers to take away and implement in their own campaigns.