Developed in partnership with comScore and the Keller Fay Group, Project Footprint closely tracked the online and offline activities of 70 multiplatform subscribers to The Times over the course of a month. The study shows how exposure to advertising on the tablet edition provokes offline conversation as well as searching online and purchasing products. This finding demonstrates how exposure to advertising has a strong correlation to brand advocacy, say the publishers.
Key findings from the study that were presented to media agencies and clients highlighted how:
* Times readers are a digitally hungry audience, spending 63% more time online and visiting 57% more pages than the average internet user
* Times readers are also naturally inquisitive, spending 372% more time with Google compared to the average internet user
* Times readers spend 56% less time with Facebook compared to the average internet user
* Advertising exposure demonstrated a strong correlation to brand advocacy in various categories e.g. supermarkets (95% of brand advocates also saw an ad for their preferred brand during the month), banking (86%), airlines (75%), Cars (65%)
* Advertising exposure drove higher offline conversation levels for a variety of advertised brands, compared to a non-exposed control group e.g. Burberry +150%, Mr Turner (movie) +114%, VW +67%, Barclays +36%, Audi +28%, John Lewis +16%
* Advertising exposure also drove higher online behaviour (brand search/website visitation), compared to a non-exposed control group e.g. cinemas +111%, Marks & Spencer +50%, Lloyds Bank +18%
* Advertising exposure also drove higher offline action (purchases/brand choice) versus non-exposed control group e.g. BMW +163% uplift (versus non-exposed control), VW +80% uplift, Audi +33% uplift, HSBC +10% uplift, John Lewis +7% uplift
Project Footprint also revealed a significant proportion of Times subscribers having a conversation and taking online action for an exposed brand e.g. retail (40%), movies (14%), banking (13%), auto (7%)
Abba Newbery, director of strategy for News UK Commercial, commented on the study: “Our proposition is that we deliver the most engaged audiences possible. This research proves that our audience is at their most engaged and attentive when they are consuming our content, more likely to use search and more likely to take an action.”
Steve Thomson, Managing Director of the Keller Fay Group, added: “The ability of advertising in all forms to drive offline conversation and shopping is well known. Now thanks to the Footprint programme we can finally see the rich interactions between online and offline channels much more vividly - enabling advertisers to gain full benefits of reaching connected audiences."
Mike Read, UK Senior Vice President and Managing Director of comScore, said: “Through this ground-breaking study, News UK and comScore have been able to understand a more complete view of the effectiveness of digital advertising. By combining observed behaviour from a single-source panel across PC, tablet and smartphone with word of mouth insight, we have learnt a great deal about how exposure to advertising provokes conversation, reinforces advocacy and drives actions. The more evidence we can provide to advertisers and media buyers about the return on investment from brand advertising in engaging environments, the faster we can move away from simplistic, flawed models like final click attribution.”
