Study: Multiplatform Advertising Adds Value

Written by Aditya Kishore

Thursday, June 26. 2008 at 11:05 AM EDT Post a comment

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A study of multi-platform advertising released this week shows that using multiple media to deliver an advertising message could yield substantial benefits.

The Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) study, titled "Understanding The True Value Of Multi-Platform Advertising," was based on data gathered by the IMMI system from a panel of 3,000 members in six major U.S. Designated Media Areas (DMAs): New York, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Miami. It tracked ad effectiveness for TV shows, movies, and a DVD release.

The advertising channels tracked were TV, radio, and theatrical trailers. The study found that exposure to just television ads resulted in lower conversions (i.e., actually seeing the TV show or movie, or buying the DVD after seeing the ad) compared to TV ads plus one additional medium. Below are some edited findings from the study:

• Six TV shows ran significant TV and radio campaigns before their new season premieres. For each of these shows, the conversion rates were consistently higher among the segment exposed to a combination of platforms than among those exposed to one platform alone.




• For four cable shows, IMMI was able to quantify the impact of advertising on television, Internet, cinema screens, and Tivo Showcases. In all of these cases, they found that exposure across more than one platform increased effectiveness.



• Of the movie releases tracked by IMMI in 2007, five employed significantly large multi-platform advertising with enough exposure to quantify the effects of campaigns. In almost every case the conversion for multi-platform was higher than conversion for a single platform, in some cases much higher.



• The study took into account the fact that consumers exposed to ads on multiple media may simply have been exposed more often than those only exposed to the TV ads, and so the higher frequency was driving higher conversion. IMMI compensated for that by comparing data for consumers with the same number of exposures. Even then, consumers exposed to advertising across multiple media demonstrated higher conversion levels. Thus, frequency alone was not responsible for higher conversion numbers.

In my opinion, this is particularly interesting news for the fledgling mobile advertising industry. In a recent study by Heavy Reading, we pointed out that mobile platforms could satisfy the advertiser's desire to cocoon customers within their brand.

In fact, one mobile advertising agency interviewed for the report claimed that the majority of its deals were integrated multimedia deals, where they were called in to handle the mobile component.

Research proving the value of mobile as a "conversion multiplier" could be an important driver for the growth of mobile advertising. So would simplifying the mobile media buying process for advertisers, specially as a complementary medium for the TV and Web.