Article by Dynamic Logic's Ken Mallon: To GRP or not to GRP? August 26, 2009
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To GRP or not to GRP? Is online branding broken? These are questions facing Geoff Ramsey of eMarketer and the industry as a whole. Geoff recently commented on The Great GRP Debate, in his July 13, 2009 article. Also, in July, eMarketer published Online Brand Measurement: Connecting the Dots, based on industry interviews.
The continually debated issue is around metrics, metrics, metrics. What are the correct metrics? Are some better than others? Some claim online measurement is a mess. Is it?
GRPs are important … with a caveat
Why are GRPs important? Well, two reasons. First, many large companies use GRPs as inputs to media allocation and other models. They depend on these models to understand the impact advertising in each media is having. Although there are other and, sometimes more cost-effective, methods for evaluating the independent and synergistic effects of advertising across different media, these GRP modeling approaches have been in place for many years and change is difficult.
Second, GRPs are constructed based on reach and frequency. Reach is important because it’s an input to another important formula: impacted reach = reach times ad effectiveness. More on impacted reach in a moment.
So, in the GRP debate, I’m on the GRP side with a caveat. I think reach is critical to determining overall impact or impacted reach, as I call it, of a campaign, but GRPs may over-simply the reach concept.
GRPs over-simplify the concept of reach, especially online.
If you have reach and frequency, you can calculate GRPs, but GRPs are an over-simplification. Here is why. In the online world, there is a big difference in impact between delivering 10 million impressions to 5 million people versus delivering 10 million impressions to 2 million people. They can both represent the same number of GRPs, but the impacted reach of the latter example is far less.
The table below steps through the math as to why this is so. This concept can be illustrated for any measure of perception or with sales data. In this example, I chose brand favorability as the perception metric and the data come from the Dynamic Logic MarketNorms database. I looked at three different exposure frequency groups: those that saw ads from a given campaign exactly once, those who saw 2-3 ads and those who saw 4 or more ads. The data are aggregated across 71 campaigns. Those who saw 2-3, had an average exposure of 2.3 and those who saw 4+, had an average exposure of 10.2.
From the above example, one can clearly see that the total effectiveness or impacted reach, in the three scenarios, is vastly different even though the number of impressions, which are the closest things we have to GRPs, are the same. I went into more detail on this in an i-Media connection article two years ago. Note how dramatically reach decreases at different frequency levels. The reach among the 4+ group is less than 1/10th of the reach in the single frequency group. The impact, on a percentage basis, is higher in the high exposure group (2.7% became favorable to the tested brand who otherwise would not have been, versus <2% in the <4 exposure groups) but the loss in reach cannot be made up and shows itself in the impacted reach calculation.
The problem of having similar GRPs associated with vastly different impact is less of a problem offline. In the offline world, once you choose, for example, a magazine, TV show or other offline channel, the range of possible frequencies is somewhat limited. Online, someone can see your ad dozens or even hundreds of times.
More on impacted reach and ad effectiveness
Impacted reach is the number of people impacted by a particular ad campaign. And, I believe that in 90% of cases, impact boils down to one of two things. For an ad campaign to be considered effective, in any media, it has to either change people’s perceptions about your brand or product or it has to drive incremental sales or both.
So, ad effectiveness = changes in perceptions + sales impact. Ad effectiveness is not about ad interaction, clicking, driving traffic, etc. These post-view behaviors can be very important diagnostically, but I don’t think they belong in the ad effectiveness equation. I’d put them in the category of very important diagnostic information. They’d be in the same category as finding out if someone read the newspaper circular or finding out if someone noticed an end-aisle display. They are important and can help you understand what went wrong when perceptions and/or sales are not impacted, but they aren’t endpoints in themselves. This is why Dynamic Logic launched AdIndex Connects with Compete so that we can now provide enhanced post-view behavioral data in addition to the attitudinal and sales impact metrics. It’s a very valuable layer of insights.
Is brand impact measurement broken?
Now to the issue of online brand impact measurement. Is it broken? In the eMarketer Brand Measurement article, there is a nice section citing Dynamic Logic MarketNorms data. It shows that, on average, online advertising lifts brand metrics. But, it also shows that there is great variability in results and that the bottom 20% of online ad campaigns actually have negative impact on perception.
Based on our further research, the biggest driver of success versus failure is the quality of the ads. So, we believe that in-market optimization of ads should not be based on click rates or interaction rates but, rather, on creative quality. Conducting a copy test before or early on in the campaign, can have a huge positive impact on results.
So, we do not believe online branding is broken and neither is measurement. Advertisers conduct thousands of research projects per year that include brand impact measurement as part of the accountability of the campaign. It is not too difficult to also compute impacted reach and ROI metrics such as impacted reach per dollar spent. Advertisers who focus on good creative tend to be more successful and we support folks like the Online Publishers Association who are pushing the envelope by launching new ad formats that more closely mirror magazine advertising.
Thanks, eMarketer for the continued great articles. Look forward to commenting more in the future.
Ken Mallon
SVP Custom Solutions
Dynamic Logic
Meet Meg Reardon August 25, 2009
Posted by markblei in : Staff posts , add a commentRecently we began a new feature where we introduce you to a few new staff members at Dynamic Logic every week . Here they will discuss their specialties, new challenges they may have faced and how the challenges were overcome, interesting projects they have worked on and new things that they have learned.
We hope that it will serve as a vehicle to allow you to get to know us better and through this to have a better understanding of our capabilities and the types of unique challenges we meet head on everyday.
Hi! My name is Meg Reardon and I’m the Research Director for the Chicago office. I just finished working on one of the most interesting projects of my career. As a psychology major, any time I can combine market research with neuroscience, it really gets my nerd-blood pumping! And that’s just what this project did. We had an opportunity to create a website experience study for a major retailer, and partner with EmSense to provide additional diagnostic information on the website performance from a neuroscience perspective. How it worked was that we at DL conducted a more ‘traditional’ quantitative study among panelists who asked to evaluate the retailer & competitive websites. They were also sent to the client website and further probed about their visit. Concurrently, EmSense conducted research in where respondents are recruited to a central location and adorned with a headset & eye-tracking equipment. They were then asked to visit the client (and a competitive) website. The headset is able to measure biosensory data around the respondent’s cognitive and emotional response to the website. Combined with the eye-tracking information, we are then able to understand what elements of the website are eliciting what cognitive/emotional response. In the end, we combined our research with the biosensory information from EmSense to provide a very rich, evaluative and diagnostic look at the website experience for our client. And, while in this case the focus was on a website evaluation, I think there are many, many ways this partnership can be put to good use in solving our client’s research issues – one the most obvious of which is copy-testing. Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family (My husband Chris, daughter Evelyn (2) and daughter Molly (3 months)) and friends, working out and eating (hence the need to enjoy working out!).
f you’re interested in how Dynamic Logic can help your next campaign perform optimally for you. We invite you to call us at 212-844-3700 or email us at answers (at) dynamic logic (dot) com. Tell them that you read about us here!
New Research: Position and ad shape may have more impact in online advertising than size August 20, 2009
Posted by dynamiclogicbeaty in : Dynamic Logic Press Release, Ken Mallon , add a commentNew research released today by Dynamic Logic reveals that online ad effectiveness depends less on size than it does on shape and placement, based on MarketNorms data.
Is Bigger Better When it Comes to Online Ad Size? Jury Still Out, According to Dynamic Logic
Position and Shape May Play a More Important Role than Size 
New York, August 20, 2009 -Research released today by Dynamic Logic, the leaders in measuring digital advertising effectiveness, reveals ads that are integrated into the content of the page, such as half banners and rectangles, are the most effective in driving online ad awareness and purchase intent.
The research, based on 2,390 online display campaigns that took place over the past three years, is from Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms database, the largest in the industry. It found that half banners (234 x 60) and rectangles (180 x 150) were more effective than ads that frame the page such as leadersboards and skyscrapers.
Media Coverage:
Top story in Ad Age today! View Ad Age article:
Why Large Online Ad Formats Aren’t Industry’s Silver Bullet
Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better When It Comes To Online Ad Formats
Meet Heather Stern August 17, 2009
Posted by markblei in : Staff posts , add a commentMy name is Heather Stern and I lead marketing for Millward Brown in North America which includes Millward Brown, Millward Brown Optimor, MaPS, Greenfield Consulting Group and of course, Dynamic Logic. In my role I’m privileged to get exposure to all of the incredible talent, innovation and expertise that resides across the Millward Brown Group and am constantly inspired by the directions we are headed, particularly within Dynamic Logic.
In thinking about some of the interesting projects I’ve worked on in recent months, a couple of things come to mind. First, there was the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival (unfortunately I didn’t get to attend!) at which our global CEO Eileen Campbell presented on the subject of Creativity and Measurement. In developing the presentation I had the opportunity to interview chief creative officers, planners, and account directors from leading agencies such as Ogilvy, Grey, JWT, Saatchi, BBH, BBDO, and Johannes Leonardo, and a philosopher to boot. We asked them two very simple yet very complex questions (1) What makes great creative? and (2) How should it be evaluated?
Of course, we also relied on thought leaders across Millward Brown who have evaluated thousands of creative ads (many of which went on to win Cannes Lions) and know a thing or two about how great creative has the power to contribute to effective communications. In many ways we felt – as researchers talking to creatives about measurement (gasp!) – that we were walking into a lion’s den, but the final result was extremely well received. You can check out the video of the presentation here.
The other really exciting initiative has been my involvement in the Dynamic Logic partnership with Compete and more broadly, the introduction of the DLConnectsÔ suite of solutions. It’s no secret that our clients are drowning in data and are increasingly looking to their research partners to bring it all together, helping them “connect the dots” between attitudinal and behavioral, digital and traditional. Leveraging data from sister company Compete we are now able to provide clients insight on how consumers search and engage on the Web following exposure to an ad. With DLConnects, there are more “connections” to come, including other post-view behavioral, sales and tracking data, all of which will allow us to provide clients with a more holistic, synthesized view of advertising effectiveness. As digital evolves, Dynamic Logic is evolving right along with it, and I’m really happy I have been able to be part of the ride.
Outside of work, I love being with family (particularly my son Jack, all of 19 months), hanging out with my friends (possibly outside, near a BBQ and a body of water), and listening to music (preferably live … Santigold and TV on The Radio concerts were recent favorites).
