The Situation
An insurance company was spending over $25 million on advertising, but unable to identify any advertising impact whatsoever. Continuous tracking showed no movement for the brand over the course of several years, within or outside periods of heavy advertising spending, nor could any sales results be attributed to the campaign. The CEO was questioning the advertising expenditure. Communicus was contracted to isolate and diagnose the effectiveness of the company’s advertising.
The Communicus Approach
Communicus implemented a
commVANTAGE study, the proprietary longitudinal design system in which the same people are interviewed at two points in time – before and after a campaign airs. Advertising engagement is evaluated against norms and in relation to spending; advertising impact is isolated based on a comparison of changes in brand metrics among those with branded advertising engagement versus the changes that occur among those without branded campaign engagement during the same period.
Key Learning
The findings indicated that the advertiser was achieving very low branded advertising engagement in relation to norms, considering the media budget. However, there was some good news: among the small percentage of the target that had seen and brand-linked the campaign, it was actually producing favorable brand perceptions and building purchase interest. Clearly, the communications strategy was sound, but the campaign and media allocation both needed significant revisions. Several reasons were identified for the campaign’s low level of branded engagement: a) the entire TV budget was spent against a single commercial which had strong overall engagement but very weak brand linkage, resulting in negligible levels of branded awareness; b) the magazine campaign was well targeted from a media standpoint, but the ads were significantly below norms for intrusiveness, and got little notice by the target audience; and c) local media, radio and out-of-home, were not supported with enough weight to have any significant impact.
Actions Taken
On the basis of Communicus findings and recommendations, the advertiser first revised the TV to strengthen brand linkage. Because the success of the overall campaign relied on this being effective, copytesting was undertaken to confirm that these changes would, in fact, result in better brand linkage. Once this had been confirmed, two new TV commercials were added to the pool. The advertiser then developed a new series of print ads that were more creatively synergistic with the TV campaign. The out-of-home campaign was eliminated, with these local funds re-allocated to radio in order to boost local media weight. And finally, the radio creative was modified, to align the executional approach more closely with the TV.
The Outcome
After these changes were implemented, the revised campaign produced significant in-market results for the brand. Branded campaign engagement increased from under 15% to over 55% of the target, with no increase in overall media budget. And, among those who had seen the campaign, the advertising generated strong increases in purchase interest. Overall, purchase interest was nearly doubled, with the greatest gains evident among those aware of multiple campaign executions. Based on the strength of these results, supported by stronger conversion rates among the company’s sales agent base, the advertising budget was increased by nearly 20% for the following year.
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