This document explores the interplay between marketing, research, and design, highlighting the need for collaborative approaches to enhance user-centric solutions. It emphasizes that successful marketing and research should adopt design thinking methodologies to better understand consumer needs and motivations. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of brand associations in pricing strategies, advocating for a balance between driving volume demand and maintaining premium pricing.

1. PerspectivesVOLUME 6 | ISSUE 2

2. Inthisedition
Volume 6, Issue 2
Can Marketing and Research Become Better by Design?
Point of View
Published Articles
Knowledge Points
Amazon Tops Walmart in Ranking of Most Valuable Brands
Why China’s Changing Media Landscape is an Opportunity to Build Brands
Marketing to Diversity: Lessons from US Politics
SXSW Interactive 8 Top Trends of 2013
What’s Behind the BrandZ Top 100 Ranking and Seemingly Unbeatable Apple?
It Works for Coca-Cola and Google and it Can Work for You Too
Advertising: How to Maximize the Long-Term Effects
Why is it Always Price Before Volume?
Understanding the Brand Impact of Mobile Advertising
Social Measurement Depends on Data Quantity and Quality
Marketing Cars: Change Media Gear
Navigating the New Path to Purchase
The Power of Being Meaningful, Different and Salient
What Does ‘Meaningfully Different’ Actually Mean?
Relentlessly Relevant Brands
What’s in a Name? How to Name a Company in the Global Economy
How Do I Use Online Video Effectively in my Campaign?
Tracking at the Crossroads
Delivering a Meaningful Brand Promise
Digital: The Power and the Peril
Characteristics of a Passionate Brand
Digital & Media Predicitions 2013
Optimizing Ads: Is Less Always More?
Effective Advertising: Harnessing the Power of Creativity
Reports of Apple’s Demise are Largely Exaggerated
The Joy of Six
Acknowledgements

3. Key to the rise of design has been the growing
understanding that successful design is user-
centric—that is, a product or service must be
optimized around the needs of the people who are
going to use it. This focus on the needs of the end
user has helped design become a factor not only
in the development of products, but also services,
organizational structures, and brands.
At its best, design encompasses form and function,
utility and aesthetic appeal. The power of good design as a means to create
value is epitomized by the success of Apple. The visual and tactile appeal of
Apple’s simple, intuitive products has helped Apple become the most valuable
brand in the world, according to the 2013 BrandZTM
Top 100 Most Valuable
Global Brands Ranking. Similarly, good design lies at the heart of the success
of Amazon, where it enables both operational efficiencies and a positive
shopping experience.
Market research has something in common with the field of design. Like
designers, market researchers set out to uncover insights into human behavior
that are relevant to client objectives. And like designers, market researchers
rely on research. (Designers might say they are making “observations,” but
their observations are, essentially, ethnographic research.)
Thoughthesesimilaritiesexist,thefortunesofdesignandmarketresearchhave
gone in opposite directions in recent years, and marketing, the discipline that
depends on market research, has struggled as well. We all know the statistics:
most new products fail, most viral videos go nowhere, and click-through rates
are laughably low. Is it any wonder that a study by the Fournaise Marketing
Group finds that 73 percent of CEOs think marketers lack business credibility
and fail to drive financial growth?
MARKETING AND RESEARCH: DIVIDED WE FALL
I believe that one issue underlying many of the problems faced by marketing
is the approach that marketers and researchers take to teamwork and
collaboration. Contrasting marketers’approach with that of designers may be
useful.
In the design process, the same group of people is involved from the definition
oftheproblemthroughideation,insight,andimplementation.Thecontinuous
involvement of the same team of designers creates a seamless process and
ensures that the insight remains central to the implementation.
By contrast, the practice of marketing is often distanced from the research
function that ought to enable its success, and different developmental
stages often involve different people. This can result in misunderstandings,
inefficiency, and a dilution of purpose. What
starts off as a racehorse of an idea often ends
up looking like a camel of a product.
In my experience, the most successful
research projects are those that involve the
same team of people during the discovery,
analysis, and implementation phases. Bringing
together multiple stakeholders with different
backgrounds and expertise helps minimize the
effects of personal bias. It also helps ensure
commitment when a final solution is implemented. To shift toward this type
of approach will take time and effort, and there will be a cost involved. But if
marketers and researchers learn to work more like designers, the result will be
more effective implementation of new and valuable marketing initiatives.
DESIGN THINKING: WHAT’S IN IT FOR US?
What else can marketers and researchers gain from studying the example
of designers? Besides their collaborative methodology, is there something
genuinely distinct about their approach to problem solving? What are the
hallmarks of “design thinking,” and do they have any applicability to our
disciplines?
Make it your business
Never delegate understanding.
– American designer Charles Eames
Like many creative people, the influential modern designer Charles Eames is
reputed to have avoided the “market research” of his time. But I take Eames’
command to mean that, whether you employ researchers or not, if you don’t
have a thorough understanding of a need and its context, you will reduce
your chances of implementing an effective solution.
One of the biggest problems facing marketing and consumer insight today
is the expectation that “insight” is the responsibility of a specific department
or agency. If we learn anything at all from design thinking, it should be that
without all the stakeholders–and particularly marketing–being involved in
the definition of the central question, the risk that research investment is
wasted will be high. If you do not really understand what question needs
to be addressed, your research is all too likely to produce vast amounts of
information and very little understanding or action.
The practice of
marketing is often
distanced from the
research function
that ought to enable
its success
NIGEL HOLLIS
Chief Global Analyst
Millward Brown
POINT OF VIEW
CanMarketingandResearch
BecomeBetterbyDesign?
Over the last decade, the importance of design has
grown beyond the traditional concept of making
an artifact look good to take a more central role in
business, academia, and government.

4. Ask stupid questions
Question: How many designers will it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: Why a light bulb?
– from a review of design thinking in Fast Company
The quip above may be funny, but it contains more than a grain of truth.
An open, curious, and questioning mindset characterizes design thinking.
Designers don’t accept a brief at face value; they step back and ensure that
the definition of the problem is correct. Don Norman, in his article“Rethinking
Design Thinking,” suggests that there is great power in the ability to ask
“stupid” questions, the ones that no one inside an organization would ask
because they are blinded by what seems obvious. A friend of mine who works
in new product development confirms this, saying,“Designers go back to zero
– minus five, even – and work to re-envisage and reengineer, not just amend
what already exists.”
Are consumer researchers equally willing to step back and look at the big
picture? We researchers are a challenging and curious bunch, but we may be
too quick to accept the premise that is offered to us. That is, instead of asking
“Why a light bulb?”we may be more likely to ask“What type of light bulb?”We
need to be brave enough to ask the stupid questions and to keep on doing so
until we get good answers.
Fully understand your customer
To create good designs, you first have to understand people—what
they need, want and enjoy, as well as how they think and behave.
– Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO
Designersputhumanneedsatthecenteroftheirapproachtoproblemsolving.
ButBillMoggridgecautionshumandesignersaboutassumingtoomuchabout
their human end users.“They will probably be surprisingly different from you,”
he said, “so it will only be by understanding them that you can avoid the trap
of designing for yourself.”
Marketers and researchers also strive to understand people, but we need to go
beyond their behaviors to understand their underlying motivations if we are to
build meaningful and well-differentiated brands. So we need to ask ourselves:
Do we really know the people who use our brands, not just as people to be
sold to but as people to be served? And if not, how will we go about getting
to know them?
Designers tend to rely solely on observation to gain insights and so risk
misinterpreting why people behave as they do. By contrast, researchers have
traditionallygravitatedtowardaskingquestions,usingverbalorwrittenprobes
to understand attitudes and behavior. Ideally we would combine observation
of both physical and digital behavior with questions designed to elucidate
these behaviors. New tools such as facial coding and other implicit techniques
can add a deeper understanding, which is particularly useful when people
may not be able to vocalize why they do something. Our job as researchers
is to draw on the combination of methods that can best help us understand
people’s motivations and instinctive responses.
Embrace your constraints
One of the most interesting design tensions today is between
cost constraints - especially given the economic crisis - and
sustainability constraints, or the impact on the natural
environment. Some of the most attractive design solutions are
driven by both constraints.
– Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, Interviewed for strategy+business by Art
Kleine
All design is about working within constraints. No one should know that
better than those who design research projects. What can we use as stimulus
material? What interview methodology is feasible? What budget do we have?
Designers understand that constraints help produce better solutions, even
when the constraints are budgetary. That understanding applies equally well
to marketing and research. None of us have the budget we think we need. But
constraints go far deeper than mere budgets. Marketers are constrained by
people’s ability to appreciate their offer. Time after time, failed “innovations”
prove that it is truly difficult to get people to adopt new habits. Brands that
are not aligned with consumers’ experience and expectations—even if they
offer real health benefits or are environmentally friendly—are not going to
succeed.
Make it tangible
Stupid question: What’s the difference between the outcome of a
design process and the outcome of a consumer research project?
The simple answer, which may evoke the response“So what?”, is that a design
process produces something tangible, such as a package, product, or process,
while a research project doesn’t. Research delivers potential. The ideas and
insights we present will have value only if they are acted upon.
Too often the potential of research is not realized. So how can we increase
the chances that our marketing insights will be acted upon? We can work to
convey our research findings through something more tangible than a slide
presentation. At the very least, we can weave our facts and findings into a
compellingstory. ButwemightalsogobeyondPowerPointtomoreexperiential
methods. For example, we might try to engage our audience in a task, such as
drawing up a map of the consumer path to purchase, brainstorming scenarios
usingPost-it®Notes,orpresentingthekeyresearchfindingintheformofaslice
of cake. Above all, we must move people beyond superficial head-nodding to
deeply felt understanding.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
In writing this Point of View, I have been dogged by the feeling that some of
the practices outlined above were once regarded as accepted best practices.
Maybe for some companies they still are, but I suspect that for the majority
they are not. Why? Because the business of marketing has become overly
siloed, fragmented, and data driven. At a time when researchers have more
tools than ever to help create insight in a timely manner, we are faced with an
evenbiggerchallenge—howtopromulgateunderstandingandinspireaction.
Maybe the most important thing we can take away from design thinking is
the fundamental question:“Does it have to be this way?”
POINT OF VIEW
CanMarketingandResearch
BecomeBetterbyDesign?

5. Perhaps the answer lies in a need for short-term
results brought about by shareholder pressure,
a “now” mentality that needs to see results
yesterday, along with a business culture in which
people advance quickly through positions,
creating a lack of continuity in senior marketing
roles.
Whatever the cause, the result is a disconnect
between short-term volume boosts driven by
price cutting (which are easily and immediately
measured), and the long-term brand investment
that can sustain a price premium and secure
margins. We have consistently seen, even during
recessions, that consumers are willing to pay
more for brands that they perceive are worth it.
That is one reason why the share price of the most
valuable brands consistently outperforms the S&P
500, even during tough economic times. In fact,
during the 2008 global recession the value of the top 100 brands increased
by 2 percent to $2 trillion.
While pressure from key stakeholders may be considerable, marketers should
not make pricing decisions based on short-term targets. Rather, they should
invest in research to quantify the role of price in their long-term brand
strategies. The understanding gained will result in much better-informed
pricing decisions.
PRICE ASSOCIATIONS CAN GENERATE DEMAND
Most marketers acknowledge that strong brands benefit from positive brand
associations in the minds of consumers. However, associations with price
are often considered separately from other equity-driving perceptions; price
is frequently seen as a different type of influence. But as Gordon Pincott
argued in his Point of View “Brand Equity: What’s Price Got to Do with it?”,
perceptions of price can in fact be a critical part of the association set that
determines brand equity and the resulting long-term volume demand.
In the UK airline category, for
example, we have found that
associations relating to low cost
(such as offering more acceptable
prices and offering good deals
and promotions) are the second
most important group of brand
associations for generating
demand. This importance is driven
by the low-cost airlines such as
easyJet.
However, in spite of the fact that low price is a key factor in generating
demand, there are some brands that won’t benefit from an association with
low price. For example, for Singapore Airlines, demand is generated by the
associations of exclusivity supported by perceptions of high price. There are
also some brands that need to avoid strong associations with either high or
low prices; British Airways is an example.The airline needs to avoid too strong
an association with high prices in order to maintain volume demand for
cheaper European hops, but it must also maintain some sense of exclusivity
to support demand for long-haul business and first-class flights.
Brand ASSOCIATIONS CAN SUPPORT A PRICE PREMIUM
Even when marketers recognize that price perceptions may have a role
in securing volume demand in the long term, they often still fail to ask
themselves what mix of brand associations will best justify a premium price
point for their brand. When trying to measure and build brand equity they
still default to drivers of preference and volume. But for many brands, the
main financial return delivered by brand equity is the ability to charge a
price premium. To ensure the long-term financial health of these brands,
managers must understand and manage
the associations that support this ability.
Though there is some overlap between
the brand associations that generate
volume demand and those that support
a price premium, the optimum brand
strategies for each task will rarely be
identical. We generally find that the best
way to drive volume demand is to build
very strong associations with core category needs, whereas to justify a price
premium, brands usually need to go beyond core needs to show that they
offer a meaningful difference—that they are unique or a step ahead of the
competition in some way.
They may do this by offering exclusive product features or cutting-edge
innovation; often, however, a brand may establish a meaningful difference
that justifies a price premium through establishing intangible associations
that are unique to them. With British Airways, for example, the sense of
connection that their customers feel with one another makes the brand
stand out from other airlines, thus making consumers willing to pay more.
If brand owners continue to design their strategies solely around what
drives volume demand while ignoring the perceptions that can defend a
price premium, they will inevitably struggle to justify high price points,
and even if the brand penetration grows, profits will suffer. Consequently,
Millward Brown has developed two metrics to measure equity: “Power,” to
measure the equity that delivers volume; and “Premium,” to measure the
equity that justifies a higher price. Using the concepts represented by Power
and Premium, you can understand your brand’s situation and shape and
optimize your pricing strategy.
For many brands, the
main financial return
delivered by brand
equity is the ability to
charge a price premium
Rachel Leaver
UK Head of Marketing Science
Josh Samuel
European Development Director
Brand Equity
Point of View
WhyisitAlwaysVolume
BeforePrice?
It has been 10 years since McKinsey published proof that
a price increase of 1 percent will produce an 8 percent
increase in profit, assuming that all other things remain
equal. So why are companies ignoring this and focusing on
chasing volume instead of securing margins through well-
informed pricing strategies?

6. DETERMINE PRICING STRATEGY USING BOTH POWER AND PREMIUM
Figure 1 illustrates the possible relationships between Power and Premium
scores and shows how a brand’s standing on these dimensions can help
to identify a pricing strategy. For a brand like easyJet, Power far exceeds
Premium; thus it would sit in the lower right-hand box. A brand in this
position would be right to maintain its primary focus on driving volume
(both through equity-driven demand and in-market deals).
However, brands like Singapore Airlines, which are low on Power and high
on Premium, would sit in the top left-hand box. Brands like these deliver
returns by charging a premium price; thus they should keep their price high
and focus on building the associations that will justify that premium.
Plotting brands on the Power/Premium axes can help managers of brand
portfolios ensure that each brand occupies a different position. If we looked
at Unilever brands in the U.S. shampoo market, for example, we would see
Nexus occupy the top left-hand corner, meaning that it can continue to
position itself as a premium brand. Suave, which targets the value shopper,
would be situated in the lower right-hand box.
Dove and TRESemmé would be right in the middle. Brands in this position
couldconceivablybemovedtowardmorepremiumormorevalue-for-money
positions.To do this, they would have to increase relevant brand associations
and possibly adjust their prices while taking care that the brands remain
differentiated from other Unilever offerings.
Don’t accept the status quo
A brand’s position on the Power/Premium plot is not necessarily its destiny.
As discussed earlier, the key is to understand which image associations can
generate volume demand and which ones justify a price premium, and then
feed that information into your brand strategy.
Specifically, you should follow these steps:
Having gone through this process, you are in a position to tailor a brand
strategy and communications plan that supports your chosen pricing
strategy.
Actual in-market pricing
Finally,onceyouhaveselectedapricingstrategyandtailoredcommunication
to support it, you need to understand the in-market price points that any
given product variant or SKU can command. A conjoint or econometric sales
model will provide you with the tools to answer this question by pinpointing
the prices and promotions to use to obtain your sales and profit targets.
Too often this type of analysis is done with the objective of deciding what
tactics to use to meet short-term targets. The overall brand strategy is not
kept in view; hence the current situation of short-term price cutting and
possible negative impact on the brand. However, this information, combined
with your overall brand-building strategy, will provide you with concrete
facts and a strategic plan with which to negotiate terms and build good
relationships with suppliers and/or retailers, while supporting the long-term
success of your business.
Conclusion
All too often, pricing decisions are made for specific products based only
on a consideration of the short-term return that different price points will
deliver. And even when price is considered as a key feed into long-term
brand equity, the focus is usually on the impact this future equity will have
on volume demand. There has been a lack of emphasis on the role of brand
equity in supporting a price premium, and hence potential for further profit
has been lost.
A holistic understanding of the most suitable pricing strategy for a brand
can only come with an understanding of the brand’s dual roles: generating
volume and supporting a price premium. Only with that understanding can
we make informed decisions about specific price points that will optimize
both short-term volume and long-term brand health.
When you combine all of these elements in your approach to pricing, you
are in a good place to deliver long- and short-term sales targets while at the
same time reassuring all stakeholders that your strategy is based on solid
research and facts.
Point of View
WhyisitAlwaysVolume
BeforePrice?
Identify the images that contribute most to generating volume
demand and justifying a price premium in your category, as well
as those that may be uniquely important to your brand
Understand the current strength of associations for your brand
in these areas. Is there room to increase them?
Consider the feasibility of your brand owning one or more of
these associations and actually communicating them.
1
2
3
Power Premium Brands
Underperforming Brands
Premium Brands
Value Brands
POWER
PREMIUM
Keep price high Keep price high
Use tactical price promotions
to drive additional volume
Keep price lowRefocus brand
Best returns at high price point Good returns at any price point
Lower returns at any price point Best returns at low price point
Figure 1: Pricing Rules Based on Power and Premium

7. But for those of us behind the wheel of
continuous tracking, that’s how it feels at the
moment. We are still moving forward well enough,
but signs we pass along the road are warning of
tough conditions ahead. Are the wheels really
going to fall off around the next bend?
THE DRIVE SO FAR
Continuous tracking was invented by Maurice
Millward and Gordon Brown in the 1970s to address
specific client questions. Clients commissioned our early studies because they
needed insight and actionable advice about marketplace events, such as the
launch of new competitors or the start of new advertising campaigns, and
continuous tracking enabled them to make informed marketing decisions
that helped grow their brands.
In time this longitudinal data also proved its value by revealing the underlying
dynamics of how marketing worked. It became clear, for instance, that the
majority of ads did not wear out in the way marketers anticipated, and that
the most important attributes in a category are often the most difficult to
change. Learning built up around the measures and how they could be used
to predict the sales impact of marketing activity. Over time, another distinct
use for tracking emerged: to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on an
ongoing basis. Because tracking was proving to be so valuable, the demand
for tracking studies increased, and soon they became an essential part of the
marketing and research landscape.
CHALLENGES PAST AND PRESENT
Tracking continued to be an invaluable tool in the decades that followed. But
as marketers relied on it more and more, some problems became apparent.
For example, the dual purposes of tracking cited above (tracking advertising as
well as monitoring KPIs) created tensions. As KPI output from tracking became
part of dashboards and was reported to senior management, the focus on the
immediate actionability of tracking data was often relegated to the backseat.
This in turn led to questions about the need for such large studies to produce
top-line metrics.
Tracking’s versatility, when exploited, actually became a drawback. Tracking
studies seemed to be convenient vehicles for carrying any and all questions
relatedtomarketing,butasthestudieswereloadedup,theybecameunwieldy.
At the same time, pressure on costs led to a reduction of sample sizes, limiting
fast,reliablefeedback.Forcedtocarrymoreweightwithalesspowerfulengine,
the tracking study struggled to perform as it once had.
Tracking also encountered new challenges as the media and research
environments changed. For example, a major need has emerged in the last few
years: to evaluate the performance of media channels. Existing multipurpose
tracking studies can provide a high-level read on two or three major media, but
sample sizes and questionnaire space limit the depth of the analysis. Similarly,
the broad definition of a tracking sample and the limited sample size make it
difficult to give detailed guidance on many digital campaigns.
One of the most recent challenges to tracking is the ready availability of data
scraped from theWeb. Online data—from social media in particular—provides
cheap continuous feedback about brands and their marketing. Thus some
advertisers have new reasons to question the value of large-scale tracking
surveys.
THE VIEW AT THE CROSSROADS
The signs are clear: The world is changing and research needs to change with
it. Respondents are harder to reach, especially those in the most desirable
demographic groups, and they don’t want to engage with long, repetitious
surveys. We need to adjust to that reality.
But not every blinking light warns of a real hazard. For example, unstructured
data from online sources is not going to nullify the need for structured survey
data. Social media data is crucially important for certain types of brands, such
as those that conduct business online, and service brands that have customer
or community relationships to manage. But for most brands, coverage on
social media is typically at a low level, is often generated by a vocal minority,
and frequently relates to events (marketing or otherwise) rather than to the
brand itself.
While this information has value, if it is evaluated in isolation it may present a
distorted and partial view. Businesses need to know what is changing, and a
self-appointed online group will not usually provide the consistent frame of
reference that is needed to discern if real change is occurring.
GORDON PINCOTT
Chairman, Global Solutions
POINT OF VIEW
TrackingattheCrossroads
No one wants to hear that the car that has always
felt safe and comfortable now needs a major
overhaul.When the ride has always been smooth,
it’s hard to believe that the engine will soon be
straining to get the car up hills.

8. THE WAY AHEAD
To compete in today’s fast-moving, competitive, and complex markets, brand
stewards need regular, timely, and reliable feedback. Now more than ever,
they need to monitor the underlying long-term trajectory of their brands as
well as the short-term effects of in-market activity. The question is how to
capture this information most efficiently.
Many improvements and modifications have already been made to tracking
over the years. In web-based markets, the look and feel of tracking studies
have changed enormously. Questions are designed to make interviews more
engaging and enjoyable for respondents, and questionnaires have been
shortened. Further remodeling is already under way, as interviews on mobile
phones need to be shorter still.
But old-style tracking has never been able to cover every aspect of marketing
activity, nor was it best placed to do so. As the pressure on questionnaires to
become shorter has increased, it has become obvious that there are better
ways of tackling some of the important marketing questions.
REENGINEERING FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE
We need to think about moving from“tracking studies”to“brand performance
programs.” A single study can no longer answer all marketing questions, but
a brand performance program can employ the individual tools that are best
suited to address each issue. To understand how a new ad campaign has
broken through, a program can include a short study, executed over two or
three days, with a robust sample. To quantify the contribution of individual
channels to short- and long-term sales, a program can have a CrossMedia
study running over the duration of the campaign with enough questionnaire
space to ask the relevant media questions.
A program, however, cannot be a series of disconnected ad hoc projects;
the components of the program must provide a platform for integrated
storytelling.They should be glued together by the brand, not just conceptually
but by consistent brand measures selected by the brand and research teams to
address the central questions, such as how marketing activities are expected
to influence the brand and what attitudes or ideas about the brand need to
be changed. The components of a research program will vary according to
brand, category, and circumstances, but an effective program should include
the following elements:
A detailed understanding of brand equity
Underpinning the entire program and dictating its components should be
brandequityinsightsthatidentifytheprocessthroughwhichassociationsbuild
brand equity and how that equity manifests itself in the financial performance
of the brand. This understanding will make it clear what marketing actions
needtobetakenandwhatKPIsneedtobecapturedintheongoingmonitoring
of brand performance.
A continuous monitor
The second essential piece will be a sleek continuous monitor of the KPIs
that signal changes in the health of the brand. For web-enabled studies
(via computers or mobile devices), the results will flow automatically to a
web-delivered dashboard. Pen-and-paper markets will need more manual
intervention but will still be able to input
the data to a dashboard via an automated
analysis engine. This monitor will cost
less than a traditional tracking study, thus
freeing up funds to be deployed against
other elements of the program.
Insights into channel effectiveness and
creative power
CrossMedia studies and digital deep dives
can identify the effectiveness of channels.
Feedback on executions and campaigns
can be provided either continuously or on an intermittent, fast-turnaround
basis immediately after the start of the campaign. Either method will allow
timely adjustments to be made if necessary. A complete picture of the brand
activities will need to harness social media data as well as survey data.
READY FOR THE ROAD AHEAD
Cars today serve the same purpose as cars 40 years ago. But today’s cars look
and feel different; they go faster, they’re more efficient, and the components
and technology that power them have radically changed.
And just as cars have evolved to meet today’s driving conditions, research
solutions must be adapted for the complexity of our current era. Brand
performance programs are, in spirit, totally in tune with the idea that gave
birth to tracking 40 years ago. Action oriented and designed to give timely
advice on important investment decisions, brand performance programs will
provideasetoflinkedsolutions,eachsolutionchosenbecauseitisthebestone
to answer a specific question.They will harness the latest available technology
to be cost-efficient and timely. And because the most crucial factors for the
category will be identified early on through detailed brand equity work, the
questionnaires that make up the rest of the program can be short and tightly
focused.
When designed and implemented effectively, brand performance programs
will help brands negotiate the complex interchanges faced at every point of
decision-making. Moving smoothly down the highway, through a landscape
of challenging and changing conditions, they will carry brands safely and
efficiently to profitable outcomes.
A single study can
no longer answer all
marketing questions, but
a program can apply the
individual tools that are
best-suited to address
each issue
POINT OF VIEW
TrackingattheCrossroads

9. President Obama was reelected due in large part
to the strength of his support from Latinos (71%),
African Americans (93%), and Asian Americans
(73%). Together these groups represented close
to 30 percent of the total votes cast, compared to
roughly 10 percent in the 1990s.
The lessons for politicians are clear, but there is a
lesson for marketers as well. Brands that continue
to focus their marketing on the traditional non-
Hispanic white mainstream will become niche brands—just as Mitt Romney
was, in the end, a niche candidate. He had strong support among those who
looked like him, i.e., non-Hispanic white males, but that group is no longer
large enough to send a candidate to the White House.
To stay relevant and grow in today’s America, brands need to change and
adapt. While we are not a majority-minority nation yet, ethnic segments
already have significant influence on the country’s social, cultural, economic,
and political life, and therefore should be treated not as siloed segments but
as a fundamental part of a brand’s mainstream marketing strategy.
This lesson is applicable for marketers everywhere, since brands all over the
worldfacethechallengeofappealingtoincreasinglydiverseaudiences.Thefirst
step in meeting this challenge is to develop a research-based understanding
of the type of strategy needed for a particular brand.
CROSS-CULTURAL OR MULTICULTURAL? OR BOTH?
In reaching the different racial and ethnic groups that comprise the new
mainstream, two main approaches are considered: cross-cultural marketing
and multicultural marketing. While the former aims across demographic
groups by appealing to consumer similarities rather than differences,
traditional multicultural marketing targets a specific demographic group such
as Hispanics.
The debate between defenders of each approach has been quite passionate
in recent times. Both sides present compelling arguments to support their
respective views; consensus has yet to be reached.Why?The business interests
of agencies that specialize in one or the other approach are a contributing
factor, to be sure. But another obstacle is the assumption that cross-cultural
and multicultural marketing are mutually exclusive practices. They are not,
and in fact, a combined approach is often
needed to achieve the best return on
marketing investment.
Intheidealworldofone-on-onemarketing,
brandswouldaddresstheindividualneeds
and desires of one consumer at a time,
but this isn’t possible in the real world, so
brands need to balance their efforts. They
need to develop campaigns that appeal
to consumers of different racial or ethnic
backgrounds without being so broad and general that they are relevant to no
one in particular.The fruitful middle ground is the place where a“total market”
perspective leverages similarities and respects cultural nuances.
THE ROLE OF RESEARCH
Finding the right balance between customization and standardization can
be difficult, but some companies, including McDonald’s, Diageo, Coca-Cola,
MillerCoors, Kellogg’s, and General Mills, are doing it quite successfully. How?
By incorporating the ethnic perspective early on in their brands’foundational
research. Before making a major investment such as developing a new product
or advertising campaign, they first identify the real role of race or ethnicity
in product and brand preference. Only then do they decide if they need a
targeted approach for a particular segment, or if their strategy can be based
on a universal insight.
When cross-cultural and multicultural methods are used together, the cross-
cultural insight usually defines what the overarching message should be,
while multicultural knowledge informs how the message will be delivered
in different settings. In the presidential campaign, a cross-cultural “insight”
was easy for both sides to identify—the economy. The economy was clearly
the number one issue for the vast majority of voters, regardless of race or
ethnicity. And both candidates were able to communicate their perspectives
in a relatively consistent way when speaking at national (i.e., cross-cultural)
forums such as the debates.
However, Mitt Romney’s campaign missed opportunities to effectively
tailor his message to targeted forums. One particularly glaring error was his
communication with Latinos, who are generally more optimistic than other
groups. Seemingly ignorant of this ethnic nuance, Romney continued to
hammer away with negative campaigning when he would have done better
to adopt a positive tone in describing better days to come.
Cross-cultural and
multicultural marketing
are not mutually
exclusive practices; a
combined approach is
often needed
DAVID BURGOS
Vice President of Cultural
Strategy
POINT OF VIEW
MarketingtoDiversity:
LessonsfromU.S.Politics
The 2012 presidential election confirmed something we’ve
known for quite some time:There is a new normal in the United
States, and that new normal is multiracial, multiethnic, and
multicultural.Though Mitt Romney got 59 percent of the non-
Hispanic white vote, the highest total for a GOP nominee since
1988, he was not victorious.

10. But we would suggest that this debate has been
misguided. Drawing on learning from thousands
of brand equity studies as well as a recent,
groundbreaking pilot that linked neuroscience and
survey data to consumer shopping behavior, we
have established that financial success for brands
depends on all three of these qualities. The ideal
balance for a specific brand is a function of both
the product category and the primary mode of
financial return—sales volume or premium pricing.
Three Qualities, All Important
Successful brands are meaningful, different, and salient. Each of these three
elements comes with its own theory and history.
Difference (aka differentiation) has been widely adopted as a cornerstone of
successfulsalesandmarketingsincethe1940swhenRosserReevesintroduced
the term“Unique Selling Proposition”(USP) to the marketing lexicon.
And yet, as true differentiation has become more and more difficult to achieve
in increasingly commoditized markets, marketers have pursued alternate
brand-building strategies. For example, in recent years, many marketers have
embraced the idea that brands have to build relationships with consumers,
so they have worked to make their brands meaningful, usually by improving
product perceptions and strengthening emotional affinity. Other practitioners
prefer to rely on salience. Though building brand awareness has always been
accepted as a fundamental objective of brand marketing, there is ongoing
discussion over whether awareness is important simply as a precursor to brand
equity, or if the concept of salience, which goes beyond basic awareness, is
actually the most important driver of brand choice.
The Proof: Brands, Brains, and Behavior
Characteristics of Successful Brands
The strongest brands don’t rely only on being meaningful or only on being
different or only on being salient—they weave all three qualities together.
In his Millward Brown Point of View titled “China’s Top 50: Much Progress
but More to Do,” Peter Walshe details the striking success of Chinese brands
that are meaningful, different, and salient.
A similar analysis of the global BrandZ
database, in which we compare brands
that are low on all three qualities with
those that are high on all three, shows the
same pattern. Brands that are meaningful,
different, and salient derive three times
more of their volume from the strength
of the brand, as opposed to factors like
availability and promotions. Furthermore,
they command a price that is 14 percent
higher, and their growth in value share is, on average, six percentage points
higher than brands that are low on meaning, difference, and salience.
Understanding Consumer Brains
We know that successful brands are meaningful, different, and salient, but to
maximize the power of marketing, we need to know more than that.We need
to understand how these brand qualities act on the minds of consumers to
affect purchase decisions.
It is relatively easy to understand the effect of salience. Salience gives a brand
an advantage because of the habitual nature of much human behavior. In
shopping, consumers rely on mental shortcuts or heuristics when they make
their brand decisions. One such heuristic is to assign greater importance to
things that have ready mental availability, the effect of which is
to choose the most salient brand.
Comparedtobrandsalience,theroleofbrandmeaninginconsumerdecision-
making is complex, as it involves both cognition and affect. However, we
have learned that we can measure how meaningful brands are by using
some simple and straightforward questions. In his book The Branded Mind,
Erik du Plessis builds on the ideas of Antonio Damasio to suggest that simple
questions about how the brand makes you feel and how well it satisfies your
needs can be used to summarize the overall impact of functional associations
and feelings on brand decisions. We use questions like these to measure and
define how meaningful brands are. So du Plessis’interpretation of Damasio’s
theory helps us understand how brand meaning influences consumer choice.
Of the three critical elements, difference
is the one that is most often overlooked,
with some arguing that being different is
just a special case of being meaningful. The
argument is that differentiation is delivering
a brand property that others don’t deliver,
and the effect is the same as delivering a
brand property better than others. In either
case, the brand just becomes more meaningful. However, experiments in
behavioral psychology have demonstrated that when similar alternatives
compete against each other, they all become less attractive, while if one
option stands apart from the rest, even if the difference is not particularly
meaningful, that option becomes more attractive.
These experiments have tended to focus on considered human decisions
involving relatively unfamiliar objects or concepts. Therefore, this learning
is most applicable when for some reason a consumer’s normal habits are
disrupted and he or she is considering less familiar brands. This may help
explain why difference is one of the strongest markers of future growth,
as Helen Fearn notes in her 2010 Point of View, “Growing a Strong Brand:
Defining Your Meaningful Point of Difference.”
Josh Samuel
European Development
Director, Brand Equity
Point of View
Brands that are
meaningful,
different, and salient
derive three times more
of their volume from the
strength of the brand
Of the three critical
elements, difference
is the one that is most
often overlooked
ThePowerofBeingMeaningful,DifferentandSalient
Members of the marketing community have long debated the secret to
marketing success. Many practitioners assert that differentiation is the key
factor. Others maintain that salience is uppermost during critical purchase
moments, while a significant group believes that great marketing builds
positive consumer sentiment by delivering on a meaningful brand promise.

11. BEYOND RACE AND ETHNICITY
Consumers are defined by many things beyond race and ethnicity, including
age, gender, life stage, religion, and sexual orientation. In many consumption
situations,thefactthatapersonisgayorMuslimortheparentofyoungchildren
may be the most important motivator, regardless of whether he or she is black,
white, or brown. Understanding how these dimensions are manifested across
cultures enables brands to uncover more relevant “human insights” and use
them to develop strategies that transcend ethnic boundaries.
When this happens, we see cross-cultural advertising in its finest form. P&G’s
much-acclaimed Olympic campaign, “Salute to Moms,” was based on the
universal instinct of mothers to sacrifice for their children. The ads, which
featured mothers and athletes of every color and nationality, were believable,
relevant, and heart-warming precisely because this role of mothers is universal
and well understood.
Unfortunately, many brands try to engage ethnic consumers with “culturally
relevant” messages without understanding those consumers holistically. As
a result, the campaigns developed tend to focus primarily on racial or ethnic
factors and often lapse into stereotypes; thus they fail to connect with their
intended audience. Both presidential candidates made this type of mistake
whencourtingLatinovoters.Succumbingtomediapressure,theyoftenlimited
the conversation with Latinos to the issue of immigration reform, in spite of
numerous polls that showed that the economy was actually their biggest
concern. Ironically, Romney lost the most due to this oversight because his
position on other topics—such as the dangers of big government, trading
with Latin America, and abortion—could have resonated quite well with many
Latinos.
CROSS-CULTURAL INSIGHT CAN BE FOUND ANYWHERE
The human insight that forms the foundation of a cross-cultural campaign
doesn’thavetocomefromworkdoneamongthenon-Hispanicwhitesegment.
An insight can very well originate among ethnic consumers, who are often
at the forefront of consumer trends. Two high-profile campaigns of the 2012
Summer Olympics originated this way. The big ideas underlying both “Salute
to Moms”and Kellogg’s“From Great Starts Come GreatThings,”which included
an ad featuring Olympic swimmer Rebecca Soni, came from research done
among the Hispanic population.
Sadly, the work done by P&G and Kellogg’s is more often the exception than
the rule. It is still common practice for many brands to develop their marketing
strategy based solely on the needs of non-Hispanic white consumers. Then,
when they have created an entire marketing program, they call their “ethnic”
agency and start thinking about how they can adapt it for ethnic segments.
As suggested before, the resulting strategy is frequently irrelevant to ethnic
consumers, and it is likely to become less relevant to non-Hispanic whites as
well, who expect advertising to reflect the diversity of the world they live in.
Cross-pollination of creative ideas is feasible even when cultural differences
are significant, such as between Muslims and the mainstream in Europe, or
the Chinese and Malay segments in Malaysia. Brands just need to go deep
into the core human values that shape consumer attitudes and behaviors.
HIRING FOR DIVERSITY IS A SMART BUSINESS DECISION
If an organization is dominated by people of one race or ethnicity, it is likely
that campaigns will be built around insights that are relevant to that group.
Therefore, companies should put their own houses in order before making
any major attempt to engage with the new mainstream. They must be fully
committed from the top down to the idea
that the new mainstream is multicultural,
and they ought to make serious efforts to
build organizations that are as diverse as
the markets they serve.
Obama’s campaign team seemed to
understand this. Whether it was intentional
or not, the President assembled such a
diverse group of volunteers that pundits and voters alike often commented on
how hard it had been for them to find“white people”at the party’s convention
in September. This was in stark contrast to what they saw at the Republican
convention, where minorities were virtually nonexistent. For the architects
of the Obama campaign, keeping the ethnic perspective top of mind was no
doubt made easier by the exceptional level of diversity among the campaign
workers.
We see the same thing happening in the corporate world. Organizations that
have a culturally diverse workforce often perform better in a multicultural
marketplace thanks to the empathy and life experience that ethnic employees
bring to the table. Companies seem to recognize this, as 60 percent of Fortune
500 companies currently have Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs). However, to
effect real change and reap all of its benefits, the CDO needs to promote
diversity at every level of the organization—the mid and upper levels as well
as the lower ones. At this point, we are not certain that most CDOs have the
power to do that, as only 25 percent of them report directly to their CEOs.
DON’T GO FROM MAINSTREAM TO MARGINAL
It is as clear for marketers as it is for politicians. The new normal is here to stay,
and it needs to be accepted and embraced. But brands differ from politicians
in one important way. A brand is up for reelection every time a consumer goes
shopping—so your efforts to engage ethnic consumers should be ongoing
and consistent, not seasonal. You can’t succeed by reaching out to African
Americans only during Black History Month. Hispanics consume your brands
on the 364 days that are not Cinco de Mayo, and Chinese Americans spend
money all year, not just before Chinese New Year.
Brands that recognize and celebrate diversity will not only continue to grow
by winning the hearts and wallets of ethnic consumers, but they will succeed
in staying relevant to the ever-evolving non-Hispanic white segment, too.
Changing demographics don’t have to be a threat to long-established leading
brands—not here in the United States, and certainly not in other parts of
the world that are experiencing similar shifts, such as Europe, Latin America,
and several countries in Asia. When armed with insights gleaned from
comprehensive “total market” research that looks at both the whole and the
parts, today’s most flexible and creative marketers can successfully shepherd
their brands from the old mainstream into the new.
Your efforts to engage
ethnic consumers
should be ongoing and
consistent, not seasonal
POINT OF VIEW
MarketingtoDiversity:
LessonsfromU.S.Politics

12. Brands stand to gain even more when they offer points of difference that
are truly important, even if the importance is only temporary or fleeting.
Consider my relationship with three different soft drinks back in my student
days. I wasn’t a great fan of Red Bull. I didn’t feel a personal connection with
the brand, and I didn’t particularly like the taste. On the other hand, I felt
reasonably warm toward Pepsi and did like the taste. Overall, Pepsi was
more meaningful to me. However, the trouble for Pepsi was that I felt even
warmer toward Coca-Cola and preferred the taste of that, so I tended to
choose Coke over Pepsi. But on certain nights out, Red Bull felt like the only
drink that delivered the desired combination of an energy hit and social
cachet. The result was that I barely ever bought Pepsi, but did occasionally
buy Red Bull, and when I did I was willing to pay a high price for it
because there was no substitute.
It is probably true to say that I was choosing Red Bull because it was the
most meaningful brand for my need state at that moment, so in a sense
its difference was “just a special case of meaning.” However, for marketers,
the crucial point is that brands that achieve this special state of offering
something truly different are chosen more often and can charge a higher
price.
Observing Consumer Behavior
Our knowledge of the characteristics of successful brands and the latest
thinking on human decision-making underscore the importance of meaning,
difference, and salience. But can we quantify the influence of each of these
elements on consumer purchase volume and price paid?
To investigate this, we ran a groundbreaking global pilot. We linked
respondents’ survey responses with their actual purchase behavior as well
as neuroscience data to get a full picture of how raw emotional response in
the brain links to how brands are perceived, and how that in turn influences
their purchase choices. This study helped identify the best ways to measure
how meaningful, different, and salient brands are, and confirmed that these
are the three most important brand influences on purchase behavior.
The contribution of each of the three qualities was different depending on
whether we were looking at purchase volume or price paid. To drive volume,
it is most important for a brand to first be meaningful and then be salient.
Difference is slightly less important. Being meaningful is also the most
important quality in justifying a price premium; after that, being different is
next in importance, while being salient matters less. The exact proportions
vary by category; we can quantify these to help focus marketing efforts.
IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETERS
Marketers, ask yourselves: Do you expect your brand to make money by
selling a greater volume of product or by selling at a higher price? Only a
handful of brands are compelling enough to do both, i.e., to deliver high
volume at a premium price.
Make Your Brand Meaningful
Whether your objective is volume or price, in either case your brand
needs to be meaningful, so ask these questions: Does your brand meet
the functional needs of consumers? Are
you communicating your brand’s story
in a meaningful way? And does your
combination of story and functional
delivery make people feel good?
Of the brands we measured in our pilot
work, Coca-Cola and British Airways were
among the most meaningful. Both achieved that status through great
product delivery that met consumers’ core needs, as well as marketing that
elevated the brands into emotional territory and made consumers feel good
about them.
Grow Volume through Being Salient
If growing volume is the goal, then salience is the next most important
consideration after meaning. But salience is not simply top-of-mind
awareness triggered by the category name; our pilot work confirmed that
salience is best measured in association with category needs. For example,
BritishAirwayswasthestrongestbrandontraditionaltop-of-mindawareness
for the airline category in the UK. But when we applied a needs-based
approach to salience, it was easyJet that came through as the most salient
brand. That’s because easyJet has built an extremely strong association with
low price, one of the most important category needs.
So, to build salience, you must not only shout louder than the competition,
but you must shout about things that relate to category needs.
To Command a Higher Price, Be Different
Ifyourobjectiveistosellyourbrandatahigherprice,focusonbeingdifferent.
For an example of great brand differentiation, we can look to Apple, the
most valuable brand in the world according to the 2011 BrandZ Top 100.
Though Apple does well on each element, its most outstanding performance
in nearly every category and country is on being different. The basis for this
success is Apple’s consistently great product innovation, but Apple also goes
beyond functional differentiation to project a unique personality and a clear
set of values.
Not all product innovations can capture people’s imaginations as the
Macintosh, the iPhone, and the iPad have done, but all brand owners should
work to establish genuine points of
meaningful product differentiation.
And even where there is limited scope
for functional differentiation, brands
should still strive to differentiate
through their personality and values.
CONSIDER THE POWER OF THREE
The most successful brands are not
just meaningful, just different, or just
salient—they are all three. Don’t sell
your brand short by using a myopic
model of brand building that only
acknowledges one of the three ingredients. Instead, acknowledge the
importance of all three and use consumer insight, knowledge of the category,
and brand objectives to identify the best area of focus.
POINT OF VIEW
ThePowerofBeingMeaningful,
DifferentandSalient
Whether your objective
is volume or price,
your brand needs to be
meaningful

13. Since faster, cheaper, and better is the goal,
it’s not surprising that last summer’s release from
Nielsen describing their neuro-compression
technology generated a flurry of articles in the
North American research press. According to the
release, “This proprietary technology enables
the most effective scenes within a TV spot to be
identified and edited into a shorter and often more
neurologically impactful version.”
It certainly sounded good—the promise of ads that would be shorter (and
therefore cheaper) and“more impactful”(according to brain activity recorded
on an EEG). The problem is, making ads shorter and “more impactful” does
not necessarily make them more effective. The goal of advertising is to build
brands. Advertising is effective when it creates or reinforces positive brand
associationsinconsumers’minds,andthatcanhappenonlywhentheattention
generated by an ad is linked to a brand. So it’s not enough to just light up the
brain; an effective ad must cast some light on the brand too.
Millward Brown has been helping clients optimize their creative for more
than three decades. Our work is based on our empirical understanding of
how advertising works, which we have developed through years of in-market
observation,testing,andvalidation.Originallywereliedontraditionalresearch
that asked direct questions to elicit conscious and introspective reactions from
respondents, but in recent years, we have extended our approach to reflect
new understanding of how the brain works. We now incorporate a variety of
indirect measurement techniques, including some with roots in neuroscience,
when they can add depth and nuance to our assessment. But whenever we
have advised clients on optimizing any aspect of their communications,
including ad length, our recommendations have always been based on a
holistic understanding of how an ad is intended to work against its specific
objectives.
Attention Is Just the Beginning
Of course, the first thing an ad has to do is capture the attention of viewers.
Advertisers are right to focus on this necessity. But an ad can capture all kinds
of attention—and be highly engaging for viewers—without being effective.
As Figure 1 clearly shows, there is no correlation between involvement and
persuasion. But what is more telling (because not all ads have direct and
immediate persuasion as an objective) is what Figure 2 shows: There is no
relationship between involvement and branding1. So advertisers should not
be satisfied with maximizing attention, whether they measure it by brain
scanning or direct questioning. They should set their sights on maximizing
branding.
Dede Fitch
Editor, Global Solutions
Point of View
FIGURE 1: INVOLVEMENT vs PERSUASION
1.75
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
2.00 2.25 2.50
Persuasion Mean Score
InvolvementMeanScore
2.75 3.00 3.503.25
r=0.56
UK TV Ads
FIGURE 2: INVOLVEMENT vs BRANDING
UK TV Ads
2.50
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
3.00 3.50 4.00
Branding Mean Score
InvolvementMeanScore
4.50 5.00
r=0.26
1 The data shown is from the United Kingdom, but all regions we have tested show the
same lack of correlation between involvement and either branding or persuasion.
OptimizingAds:
IsLessAlways
More?
It’s the relentless imperative of our age: Do everything better, but also faster
and at lower cost. Marketers confront this challenge as their own discipline
becomes ever more difficult. Not only are their financial resources limited, but
the consumer attention they seek is scattered and fragmented across a myriad
of media.Therefore, advertising practitioners are understandably
eager to explore any option that might help them reach consumers with
maximum effectiveness and minimal expense.

14. BRANDING BASICS
Good branding ensures that people will connect an ad with the brand being
advertised. But branding cannot be accomplished by brute force.“Brand early,
brand often” is not a winning strategy. We know that there is no relationship
between the first appearance of a brand in an ad and how well-branded the
ad is. Neither is there a correlation between the branding score and how often
the brand appears in the ad.
The fact is, there are no general rules about branding that apply to all ads.
There are no formulas to be applied. But that doesn’t mean that any branding
approach can work in any ad. Rather, it means that the critical elements of
branding—the when, where, and how—must be optimized for each individual
execution. The way in which these crucial factors are handled will depend on
the style of the creative, the communication objectives, and the history and
personality of the brand being advertised.
Poor branding not only limits the power of an ad to build associations, but can
also impede understanding. Fortunately, when copy testing points up subpar
branding, even on finished film, there are a number of post-production fixes
that can be applied. Voiceover can be added or changed. Music can be added
or changed. Pack shots, brand logos, and other brand cues can be added. And
film can be re-edited to increase the emphasis on key story elements, including
the brand.
WHAT’S THE BEST APPROACH TO BRANDING? THE ONE THAT WORKS.
The appropriate action to take to improve branding depends on the style of
the ad. Sometimes the brand needs to be introduced earlier. Sometimes just
a hint about the brand provides the necessary cue. And sometimes the brand
needs to be held back until later in the ad. It all depends on the role of the
brand in the story.
When the brand is the object of desire
An action-packed ad for a large, established carbonated soft drink in Canada
intended to highlight the brand as an object of desire, but was ineffective
because the brand was not shown early enough. In the ad, a dehydrated man
races across a bleak, sun-scorched urban landscape looking for a drink. Viewer
engagement was high, but the absence of brand cues prevented viewers from
taking away the key message: that only Brand X would slake his thirst.
The ad was improved by adding the product and the logo to the action early
in the ad. Engagement declined for the revised version (from above average to
average), but branding and advertising efficiency were 100 percent improved.
When the brand ties ideas together
Someadsworkbymakingthebrandtiethestorytogether.AUKadforSurewith
FineFragrances(anewbrandvariantintheSurelineofwomen’santiperspirants)
used this approach to explain the inspiration behind the product, which was
the realization by a creator of fine perfumes that his fragrances were useless if
busy, active women were going to“sweat them out.”
For this style of ad to be effective, viewers must appreciate the significance
of the brand to the story, but the first version of the Sure ad did not make the
brand’s role clear.Though viewers were intrigued and involved with the scenes
of the designer being chauffeured to Paris, branding and understanding were
low.
To strengthen the connection between perfume and antiperspirants, the
ad was revised in two important ways. First, signposting was improved. A
voiceover of a title card reading “The Story Behind Sure with Fine Fragrance”
set the stage, while an application shot near the end reminded viewers of the
functional benefit. Second, the voiceover was stripped down to sharpen the
focus on the essential points.
Involvement slipped slightly in the re-edited version but remained above
average,whilebranding,understanding,appeal,andnewsallsharplyincreased.
The short-term sales indicator increased from very low to very high, and its
prediction was borne out in the market.
When the brand is the solution
Athird,verycommontypeofadpresentsthebrandasthesolutiontoaproblem.
In this style, the approach to branding will vary according to the needs of the
story. We tested several versions of such an ad for Johnson & Johnson’s 24
Hour Moisture Body Lotion in the UK.
The story of the ad featured a woman
floating in an underwater world where
dry skin is never a problem, and offered
24 Hour Moisture Body Lotion as the
real-world solution.
Branding was low for the passive and
dreamlike execution, in part because
the distinction between the fantasy
sequence (a woman in an underwater world) and the real world (the woman
in her bathtub) was not clear enough.
A revision made this scene change sharper by bringing the music to a climax
as the woman’s head emerged from the bath water. Distracting elements in
the voiceover were eliminated, most notably the last line of the ad (which
alluded to the fantasy “world of hydration” from the opening). The version
which ended with viewers hearing the brand name while seeing the bottle on
the side of the tub had the strongest branding score by far.
POINT OF VIEW
OptimizingAds:Is
LessAlwaysMore?
There are no general rules
about branding that apply
to all ads.The when, where,
and how of branding must
be optimized for each
individual execution

15. A STORY NEEDS HIGHS AND LOWS
Maintaining the right degree of tension is a critical factor in effective
storytelling. The trick is to hold back just enough information to maintain
viewer interest, but not so much that viewers become confused. None of the
ads we’ve described were improved by adding exciting, high-impact elements.
Rather, their effectiveness was enhanced by relatively small modifications to
scenes that would likely have registered as low-impact points on a neuro-
compression test.
In two of our three examples, the ads were improved by reducing the number
of words in the voiceover. The revised ads weren’t shorter; they just included
fewer words on the audio track. The fact that these changes were so effective
points to the importance of something known as the brain’s “attentional
blink.” As described by Professor Jane Raymond and Millward Brown EVP
Graham Page in their award-winning 2006 paper, 3 attentional blink is a lapse
in attention that sometimes occurs as the brain is processing information.This
can cause a highly compelling scene to dominate viewers’ attention to such
an extent that the information in the subsequent scene does not register at
all.
The existence of the attentional blink phenomenon would seem to be an
argument for slowing an ad down, not speeding it up. The second of silence
that accompanied the closing shot of the revised ad for 24 Hour Moisture
Body Lotion contributed to stronger branding and enjoyment than did the
busier, noisier ending of the earlier version.
TIME IS MONEY, BUT ...
Clearly, advertisers face pressure to produce the shortest ads that can be
effective. Not only does this save money on production and media costs,
but it also makes it easier to repurpose ads for online and mobile settings. In
analyzing over 90,000 ads, we have found that both long and short ads can be
equally effective at generating brand-linked memorability and delivering on
primary messages, but short ads are less effective against complex advertising
objectives.
Ultimately,theoptimallengthof anadwillbeafunctionofthecommunication
task. Established brands can often benefit from increasing exposure by using
shorter executions, as they often do by using cutdowns of previously aired ads.
Cutdowns should include engaging material from the original ads, but must
balance high engagement scenes with time for branding and communication
points to register.
IN THE END, THE STORY COMES FIRST
Just as there are no formulas for creating effective advertising, there are no
shortcuts to optimizing an individual execution. While the idea of reducing
cost by running shorter ads is appealing, optimization cannot be achieved by
culling frames that appear to be less engaging.
Less can indeed be more—but don’t
assume that it is the slow-moving or
“boring” scenes that need to be cut. It
might be that too much high-impact,
high-excitement material is working
to the detriment of an ad by impeding
understanding and directing attention
away from the brand. In those cases,
branding and understanding may be improved by cutting back a cluttered
voiceover or dropping superfluous messages.
Optimize your ad by putting the story first. Your brand has a unique part to
play. By understanding its role and cueing it correctly, you will make the most
of your chances for advertising success.
POINT OF VIEW
OptimizingAds:Is
LessAlwaysMore?
Less can indeed be more.
Too much high-impact,
high-excitement material
can work to the detriment
of an ad

16. But can social data yield measurements that are
comparable to those from other, more established
forms of research? Is it really possible for brand
managers to tap into these data streams to gain
insight into brand equity?
We believe it is too early to say for sure, even
though social data have been used effectively
by PR and marketing departments for years. For
crisis management and on-the-fly campaign
assessments, social monitoring involves watching a wide stream of updates in
real time and using those to gauge immediate next steps. For these purposes,
a qualitative sense of the consumer mood is adequate; the precision of
quantitative research is not required.
But increasingly, insight and brand strategy teams are interested in using
social data, and they would like to place social measurement alongside
other types of brand metrics (attitudinal, behavioral, and so on). In this
context, social data must be treated with the same rigor we expect of more
traditional forms of measurement. Therefore, Millward Brown’s Emerging
Media Lab has conducted tests across 60 brands and more than 30 million
online conversations to determine the most appropriate methodologies for
working with social measurement from a brand perspective. Our conclusion?
The future of actionable social media measurement is only as strong as its
standards for data quality.
THE“SOCIAL”VOICE: HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?
Social data are fundamentally different from traditional brand measurement
data. We can think of consumers speaking in two different voices. As Figure
1 shows, the “survey” voice of consumers is captured under structured and
replicable conditions, while their“social”voice is observed in a fluid state.
The challenge is first making these two types of data structurally comparable
and then establishing linkages across them. Methodological issues arise out of
the nature of the samples available to us in these two data sources. Traditional
brand tracking and brand equity measurement rely on observing a statistically
similar group of people over time. Individuals in a quantitative dataset may be
treated differently—their opinions weighted more or less heavily—to ensure
that the sample is representative and consistent.
Butthesocialsampleisarollingsampleofactive,notnecessarilyrepresentative,
voices. Activists may overamplify topics they care deeply about, while people
having positive but ordinary experiences with a brand may not feel compelled
to speak up at all. It is not possible to weight these responses effectively
because the information needed to profile respondents is not consistently
available. Thus it is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain whether those who
post, tweet, or comment on a brand are representative of the population of
interest.
We expect that social profiling will improve over time as we’re able to derive
more of these attributes from implicit relationships. But even with improved
profiling, we anticipate ongoing concerns as basic as user duplication—e.g.,
how can we ascertain whether one individual has posted five times—once
each on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, and a forum—or whether five
different individuals posted similar content?
DEFINING A SOCIAL UNIVERSE TO MEASURE
In the current environment, the only way to address the issues of user
duplication and lack of profiling information is to put boundaries on our
dataset. We need to make some choices. Our collective eagerness to be
perpetually connected has spawned an ever-expanding ecosystem of
technology platforms, and as a result, the prevailing methodology for social
media listening is to capture as much social data as possible—from Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. But should comments on news
articles be considered? What about reviews on sites like Yelp? How do we
define the borders of the social universe?
It seems that the edges of the social universe are as murky as those of the
real universe; in both cases, the boundaries are expanding at an apparently
increasing rate. Without an agreed-upon definition of the limits of the
universe—or even what “social” means—it’s difficult to know whether we are
truly capturing all of the relevant data.
Of course, there are also significant differences in the type of data available
across platforms. Blog and forum discussion tends to be more composed and
“conversationally”oriented than Twitter and Facebook updates, which tend to
be short and posted on the fly. And while, to consumers, it may seem like social
data points are easily accessible and browsable, from a research perspective,
platforms control how those data streams are syndicated at scale. Twitter
has monetized its “firehose” and charges for full access to it; Yelp, in contrast,
prohibits collection of its reviews for research purposes. Table 1 shows the
data fields that are available (or generally inferable) across different types of
platforms.
ANNE CZERNEK
Senior Research Analyst
Emerging Media Lab
Millward Brown Digital
POINT OF VIEW
FIGURE 1: SOCIAL VOICE VS. SURVEY VOICE
SURVEY VOICE SOCIAL VOICE
Structured
Replicable Unsolicited
Fluid
Observational
Unmoderated
Guided
Quantifiable
TABLE 1: TYPES OF INFORMATION
AVAILABLE ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA
PLATFORMS
Full data stream
Full text availability
Majority public profiles
Historical data
User-level data
User profiles
Influence
Location
Gender
Facebook is a special case: Because data is only released
in aggregate, none of the measures above are publicly
available for research at a user level.
TWITTER
(TWEETS)
FACEBOOK
PERSONAL
PAGES*
BLOGS/
FORUMS
(POSTS)
*
SocialMeasurementDependson
DataQuantityandQuality
As social platforms proliferate, enthusiastic users are
generating more data than ever. Social media data are
fast becoming the hottest commodity in market research.

17. TWITTER, THE BEST SOCIAL RESEARCH SOURCE — FOR NOW
Because of all the issues we have mentioned thus far, we believe it is necessary
to rely on a single source for social data, and to us, Twitter seems to be the
strongestcandidate.It’sopen,it’smobile,andit’stheworld’slargestinformation
platform. And because the Twitter firehose flows with a good deal of tweet-
level information (including the full text, user ID, and timestamp), we’re able to
ascertain more not only about the text, but also the users. Thus Twitter meets
our requirement for respondent-level information in a bounded dataset.
Moreover, because of the way it is used and perceived by users, Twitter seems
to us to be most representative of the broader social sphere. Millward Brown’s
2010AdReactionstudyfoundthatconsumersviewedFacebookasbeingabout
connecting to friends and family, whereas Twitter was seen as an information
platform for discovering, sharing, and learning. Though much has changed
in social media in the intervening years, those observations still hold true.
Facebook is still the central connection platform, even though consumers
are also using smaller, more interest-based social networks to share content
related to cooking, photography, sports, or other specialized interests. When
the wealth of data from these sites is shared into the broader social stream, it
usually comes through Twitter. Thus Twitter seems to us the best aggregation
of discovery and sharing.
DATA ISSUES
But having chosen a data source, our work is not done. Further processing
of social data is needed. Even if Twitter is the best source of data for social
measurement, not all of the data within it is clean and useable—far from it.
Our tests of over 30 million tweets show that up to 60 percent of Twitter data
must be removed from the dataset before it is ready for analysis.
Twitter tends to have two main issues that can degrade data quality:
1. Keyword ambiguity
Social data are generally collected through keyword searches, so when a
brand name is also a common word, a large proportion of content returned
will not be about the brand. For example, collecting data for the sandwich
chain “Subway” returns many mentions of the New York City transit system.
This not only distorts the themes of conversation topics tracked, but can also
wreak havoc on other metrics, like sentiment. (In this case, a delayed subway
train might generate many complaints that are irrelevant to $5 foot-long
sandwiches.)
2. Spam
There is widespread proliferation of spam content on Twitter. As Figure 2
shows, half of the social media mentions of a particular CPG brand were spam.
When spam comments are removed, “net sentiment” tends to go down. (We
obtain our measure of net sentiment by adding the percentages of positive
andneutralcontent,andfromthatsumsubtractingthepercentageofnegative
comments.) This happens because most spam is neutral in tone; e.g., “Check
out this coupon”—so removing it leaves negative sentiment proportionally
higher, as illustrated by Figure 3.
THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEASUREMENT
Using social measurement effectively will require unstinting attention to the
quality of data we consider. The current generation of technology can help
aggregate the dataset (through techniques like Natural Language Processing
and applying Bayesian rules to cleaning), but human discretion is still needed
to evaluate its source, quality, and worth.
While we believe social data have value for measuring brand performance,
further work is needed to understand the exact relationship—if any—
to brand equity. Looking forward, Millward Brown is examining how our
proprietary measure of brand performance in social media—which we call
“social vitality”—relates to brand equity. We’re assessing its value as a leading
indicator of brand performance, as well as its usefulness in understanding the
influence of events and media on brand perceptions.
Thisresearchisunderwaynow,andweanticipatesharingresultsinthecoming
months. The first step in harnessing the brand insights contained in social
data is to create a dataset that can be managed by the same principles that
govern established, trusted methodologies. We need to be assured that we
are working with respondent-level data from a platform that has both breadth
and depth, and we need to cleanse the dataset of spam as well as irrelevant
references. Only when these steps have been accomplished can brands be
confident that they are making defensible decisions based on reliable data.
The Emerging Media Lab is Millward Brown Digital’s specialist practice
dedicated to research innovation across new media platforms — namely
mobile, gaming and social media.
POINT OF VIEW
SocialMeasurementDependson
DataQuantityandQuality
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
CPG brand
Tweets
Spam
Weeks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
FIGURE 2: SPAM PROPORTION OF TOTAL BRAND KEYWORD MENTIONS
Uncleaned
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Net Sentiment* for CPG Brand
*Net Sentiment: (Positive + Neutral) - Negative
Cleaned
FIGURE 3: EFFECT OF CLEANINGON SENTIMENT

18. dvertisers must understand these 5 things if they want
to stop wasting money—and alienating consumers—in
digital.
In spite of the billions spent on digital marketing,
Millward Brown research suggests that many ads are
ineffective, ignored or, worse, have a negative effect. To change this,
advertisers must understand how consumers behave online and
how that behavior influences responses to digital marketing. If we
understand the motivations and instincts behind people’s digital
behavior, then we can create a better return on our investment.
To achieve their maximum potential, online communications must
make instant connections to impact the many, not simply engage the
few. Advertisers must understand the consumer motivations of the
spaces their ads inhabit and work within those spaces – not get in
the way.
The digital space represents a huge opportunity to engage people
in new ways, but it comes with many perils. These need to be
acknowledged, understood, and considered as digital campaigns are
planned and executed.
A
First published in the June 2, 2013 edition of Fast Company, www.fastcompany.com
Digital is
OPPORTUNITY
Dynamic Logic finds an additional 1.3% of people claim they will buy a brand
as a result of being exposed to an online ad. That’s 14 times higher than the
click-through rate, and the conversion to a sale is similarly higher. And we
can do better.
Digital is
DANGEROUS
Advertisers must consider users’ purple and ease of experience when
determiningasplacementandtype.Brandsneedtorecognisethatprominent
placement comes at a price/ A brand that gets between a digital user and
the content they really want risks a negative reaction. Quite often, users find
ads intrusive, irrelevant and obstructive. In fact, 27% of all online ads have
a measurable negative effect on purchase intent. A negatively received as
experience erodes brand value. This is the hidden cost of online advertising.
Behaviour alone is not a good predictor of overall effect since there is no
correlation between click though and attitudinal response.
Digital is
INSTINCTIVE
Humans have evolved to react first, think second. Academic research finds
thatittakesonetwentiethofasecondforpeopletomakeadecisionaboutthe
visual appeal of a web page.Thinking is hard work, and consciously deciding
where to click is slow and ultimately tiring. As a result, people quickly and
instinctively judge whether the content is relevant, so the first instant of an
ad exposure must be as impactful as possible. People’s attention to an online
ad is intermittent and fleeting, and ads must command that attention and
use it effectively.
Digital is
DEMANDING
Digital is often described as “lean forward” - the user must attend to a
smaller screen and is largely in control of content and sequencing. Thus,
the experience is nonlinear and user-driven. Ads must be simple and visual
to communication brand and message quickly, and they must not assume
a linear mindset or an attentive audience. An ad must make a good first
impression on everyone who sees it, not just on the few who engage with it
at length or click through to other digital assets.
Digital is
PURPOSEFUL
Digital users are usually looking for specific information or content; they
have a purpose. Users know what they are looking for and it is not ads. Our
eye-tracking database suggests that on average only 50 % of people even
look at (defined as the eyes resting for 0.1 second) an online ad. High page
engagement on sites with relevant content means longer dwell time and
higherlikelihoodthatuserswithnoticeads.thematicrelevancealsoincreases
the likelihood that people will give time to advertising communications.
Purpose is why brand recognition is crucial in the online environment. The
brand is an important cue of personal relevance.

19. trong brands impact much more than revenues and
profit margins: They can drive competitive advantage,
command a price premium and bolster a company’s
resilience to crises. The intense competition among
the most valuable brands in some of the categories in
the 2013 Millward Brown Optimor BrandZTM
Top 100
ranking – released today – affirms the impact a brand’s strength
has on its value, with the fiercest battles won by those that combine
solid financial performance with great brand equity.
In personal care, L’Oréal leapfrogged Gillette and Colgate with a
30% rise in value to become the most valuable brand in this category
– all three are worth between $17 and $18 billion, so competition
was tight. L’Oréal successfully introduced new, higher-performing
products to tempt customers away from private label, including
“cosmeceuticals,” which combine cosmetic and medical benefits to
appeal to consumers’ desire for products that multitask. The brand
continues to be a leader in research and innovation, creating high
quality products that give it an attractive product portfolio, which is
customized to the local market.
Gillette continued to target younger men in an effort to convert new,
life-long customers, and received one of the highest scores among all
personal care brands for Brand Contribution – a measure of brand
equity based on customer sentiment. Meanwhile, Colgate’s healthy
brand value growth of 15% was not quite enough for it to maintain
its number two spot. Despite an intensely competitive environment,
and already having a high global penetration, Colgate increased
its market share over the last year, and its brand strength was a
facilitator of that growth.
The battle for the top is also driving change in the car sector. Toyota
has overtaken BMW to regain its position as the world’s most
valuable car brand, increasing its value 12% to $24 billion, after its
strong brand helped it recover from a number of product recalls in
2009 and 2010. It has a value proposition that people really want,
offering luxury features on an affordable, environmentally conscious
car.
With a significant value increase of 60% in the last year, Zara now
stands in front of Nike as the most valuable apparel brand. Fast
fashion is in, and the Spanish brand has consistently delivered,
while expanding its business to children, men and even home décor.
It’s long been expected that online brands will eventually gain
supremacy over their brick-and-mortar rivals, and Amazon’s beating
of Walmart to become the most valuable retail brand – worth $46
billion, a growth of 34% – may suggest this is happening. As well as
having a compelling, consistently-executed promise, Amazon makes
S
By Robin Headlee,
Vice President, Millward Brown Optimor
What’sBehind
theBrandZTM
Top
100Ranking
andSeemingly
UnbeatableApple?

20. itself available wherever customers
are – even establishing a brick-and-
mortar presence with its Amazon
lockers, self-service delivery
locations allowing customers to
collect parcels ordered online.
Walmart delivers well, too, and has
grown its value 5% to $36 billion,
but in China, a strategic market, its
performance is challenged by the
fact that consumers prefer to buy from local markets and shops.
Regardless of whether they started as online or brick-and-mortar
businesses, retail brands can no longer rely solely on their core
channels to market their products, and the most valuable brands in
coming years will be those that recognize they need to be present at
all possible touchpoints in consumers’ lives.
There are insurgent brands in a number of categories that have the
potential to catch up with the leaders in the next few years.
Apple may appear insurmountable as the highest value technology
brand, worth $185 billion, but challengers Google and Samsung
are narrowing the gap. Google, which overtook IBM to become
the second most valuable tech brand worth $114 billion, keeps
diversifying its platforms and has grown from a search engine to
become a brand to contend with across many product and service
areas.
Samsung has risen 51% in brand value to $21 billion, balancing a
remarkable period of refined innovation with significant marketing
spend. In the U.S. market, which has been dominated by Apple,
Samsung outspent Apple on smartphone marketing, bringing a
significant rise in Brand Contribution.
Luxury brands Gucci and Prada could be battling with Louis Vuitton
and Hermès in coming years. Gucci grew by 48% to $12.7 billion: As
well as leveraging its strong brand heritage, it continues to embrace
the digital world. In February of this year Gucci rolled out its new
mobile-optimized site and as of the end of the valuation period for
BrandZTM
– 1st March 2013 – the mobile site accounted for 27% of
total traffic to Gucci.com and 13% of total online revenue. Prada,
meanwhile, was the top-rising brand across all categories, with
value growth of 63% to $9.5 billion. After years of frugality, shoppers
want to spend on luxuries – but spend wisely. Luxury is seen as a
good investment, and Gucci and Prada both engage consumers who
want to buy classic pieces rather than high fashion.
So how can brands become the most valuable brand in their category
– and then widen the gap between themselves and the competitors
nipping at their heels? Out-advertising everybody else like Samsung
will only bring a short-term boost to value. The brands that have
risen furthest in the Top 100 all score significantly higher than
average on the BrandZTM
equity measures of Meaningful, Different
and Salient.
This means they provide a superior brand experience; creating value
that sets them apart from the competition. Apple is the archetypal
“meaningfully different” brand. There is clarity about what their
brand stands for – positioning, message and values – with a value
proposition that’s communicated powerfully and consistently. All
of the top risers have a distinctive brand personality, which is more
likely to generate passion and create brand advocates.
Continuing to renew the brand is essential to remain in contention
over a number of years, and the most valuable brands are
exceptional at staying relevant to customers. IBM’s reinvention as
a greater-margin consultancy which drives a “Smarter Planet” is a
good example of this.
Finally, achieving salience – becoming a brand that people trust
and recommend – requires the consistent delivery of an experience
that matches the brand’s promise. Google has built its reputation on
continual delivery of the greatest experience.
Consumers will stay loyal to brands that meet their needs, are
unique in a positive way and are ahead of the game in setting trends.
They are more appealing, and contribute most to driving sales –
and business value. A solid financial performance is essential; but
without also being meaningful, different and salient a brand will
never be a contender for most valuable brand in their category.
First published in the May 21, 2013 edition of Forbes, www.forbes.com
What’s Behind the BrandZTM
Top 100 Ranking and Seemingly Unbeatable Apple
the most valuable
brands in coming years
will be those that
recognize they need
to be present at all
possible touchpoints in
consumers’lives

21. rands that build positive customer sentiment by being
‘meaningfully different’ from the competition are able
to capture five times more volume, command a 13%
price premium, and are four times more likely to grow
their value share than those that don’t, according to
research from Millward Brown.
Being meaningfully different is what gives a brand its relevance in
the eyes of consumers. It involves delivering a brand promise that
meets their expectations and needs, being unique in a positive way,
and staying ahead of the curve in setting trends. Brands that can do
this are more appealing, and generate the greatest contribution to
driving current and future sales.
Such ruthless attention to becoming - and staying - relevant to
consumers is evident in the results of some of the Most Valuable
Global Brands in this year’s BrandZ Top100 ranking.
Apple is still the number one brand, despite a big drop in share
price and rumours that it isn’t innovating fast enough, which slowed
its value growth to 1%. Brand is Apple’s secret weapon. It remains
deeply relevant to its fan base, and the ‘love’ that this California
- based technology giant generates keeps it in the top spot with a
strong brand contribution.
Even when the financial performance of a company takes a deep
dive, if it has, like Apple, a high brand contribution - the proportion
of value generated by the brand’s ability to create loyalty - the
business can still boom. Based on the opinions of existing and
potential customers, brand contribution is less volatile than investor
sentiment: Apple’s brand contribution, for example, is still 18%
greater than that of its nearest rival in the smartphone market,
Samsung, which grew its brand value by 51% on the previous year.
Luxury brands Gucci and Burberry also both showed an increase
in brand contribution, having comprehensively met the needs of
consumers who are ready to spend on luxuries again, but spend
wisely by investing in classic pieces.
Gucci has revamped outlets to enhance the consumer experience,
while, recognising that consumers are often researching online
before they buy, also building a strong online presence. It also
announced its first mobile app, further increasing the brand’s
accessibility. Gucci increased in value by 48%. Burberry excels at
emphasising its heritage and developing compelling and authentic
brand stories. It has also made a huge investment in building its
brand over the last year, expanding into new products, categories
and territories, and merging in-store and digital retail capabilities.
Strong, relevant brands also help companies bounce back from
reputational damage. Toyota has overtaken BMW to become the
world’s most valuable car brand once again, increasing its value
by 12%, after its brand helped it recover from a number of product
recall crises. The Toyota brand is very clearly defined from a
consumer perspective - people believe it offers them something that
other car brands don’t. It is incredibly trusted, and considered to
provide excellent value. A positive consumer experience has built a
core of loyal customers who recommend the brand to others; this is
what helps brands maintain their strength in the face of adversity.
Brands need to continually renew themselves to remain in
contention over a number of years. The enduring success of IBM,
which is the most valuable B2B brand in the world, is testament
to a leadership philosophy that has always been based on being
meaningfully different. The brand has enjoyed many golden
moments - from developing artificial intelligence in 1956, to creating
the industry standard for personal computing in the eighties -
but it has never stood still. It continually reinvents itself to stay
relevant to the needs of the day, and its ‘Smarter Planet’ positioning
is in perfect harmony with the spirit of the time. IBM achieved
an 80% revenue increase in 2012 from its SmartCloud solution,
which combines the trend for cloud computing with the need of its
business clients to innovate as well as cut costs.
Google, which has leapfrogged IBM to become the second most
valuable brand in the world across all categories, keeps diversifying
its platforms - extending its brand into new services and products to
increase its relevance to consumers. It has grown from just a search
engine to become an integrated provider of news, social media
(Google+) and communications (Gmail).
A deeply relevant brand is a strong brand - and a strong brand is a
valuable asset to a business, as a source of sustainable competitive
advantage and value growth. It’s no coincidence that the brands
which rose furthest up the BrandZ Top 100 ranking this year,
including Prada (63% value increase), Zara (60%), Gucci (48%) and
Amazon (34%), all scored higher than average on the attributes
of ‘meaningful’ and ‘different’. They all strive to understand
consumers’ needs, and constantly refocus and reinvent themselves
to stay relevant and set themselves apart from the competition.
B
Relentlessly
RelevantBrands
Coinciding with the release of Millward Brown’s
BrandZ Ranking of the 100 Most Valuable Global
Brands, Peter Walshe, Global BrandZ Director,
explains why a ruthless attention to relevance will
boost a brand’s strength
First published in the May 21, 2013 edition of Contagious Magazine,
www.contagiousmagazine.com

22. peculation about Apple running out of juice – with its
focus on small changes to big products and a perceived
lack of innovation – continue to circulate and unsettle
investors. However, Apple’s steady and continued growth
in brand value cannot be ignored. In fact, Apple is the top-
ranked technology brand in terms of brand value increase
since the 2006 inception of the BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable
Global Brands study. Apple’s brand value has tracked a 1043 percent
increase – from $16 billion in 2006 to $183 billion in 2012.
Before focusing on Apple’s demise, analysts should acknowledge this
very impressive growth and customer loyalty.
The fact is, sustainable brand value is something that brands
grow over time. Apple, the Most Valuable Brand in the World in
the BrandZTM Top 100 ranking for the last two years, has grown
faster than any other global brand in the last seven years. Despite
a consumer trend towards austerity, Apple has portrayed premium
brand behavior that mimics most luxury brands rather than a
technology brand and has created millions of fans that are hugely
loyal.
Of course, innovation has also been an important driver of brand
loyalty, particularly in the last few years where Apple stepped up
its new product launches and competitors like Samsung have also
started innovating. While innovation remains incredibly important,
fans of Apple don’t expect to see frequent large-scale innovations.
It’s the longer-term view and their experience with the brand that’s
most important to them. And since we believe that consumers are
the core component of valuing a brand, then it is those consumers –
as every successful business already knows – that are central to the
brand’s success.
It’s normal for brands to have periods of refinement in between big
innovation, and we’ve seen this with Apple since 2006. Dips in share
price and market valuations do impact brand’s valuation over time
and we have seen that with other technology brands. And of course
other brands – such as Samsung in the last few years – have been
hugely innovative, so who knows what will happen in the future.
Will Apple remain at the top of the heap come May 21 when the 2013
BrandZTM Top 100 will be announced? Watch this space.
S
By Robin Headlee,
Vice President, Millward Brown Optimor
First published in the April 30, 2013 edition of Forbes, www.forbes.com
ReportsofApple’s
DemiseareLargely
Exaggerated

23. Among the biggest stories in this year’s BrandZ
ranking of the world’s top 100 valuable brands is the
rise of the apparel and retail categories, which posted
approximately 20% brand value growth over last year.
One highlight from this year’s retail story includes
Amazon’s gain over Walmart. Amazon, with a brand value of $45.7
billion, saw its value grow by 34%, while Walmart grew by 5% to
$36.2 billion. Amazon’s operational swiftness accounts for a good
part of its financial success, namely, the retailer’s ability to quickly
adapt to market and pricing fluctuations and normalize goods to
real market value. Additionally, Amazon has been making the move
to in-store selling, with a push in the UK and US to sell merchandise
within highly trafficked convenience stores.
Walmart’s second place performance comes on the heels of a
slowdown in the Chinese market, a major area of focus for Walmart.
Despite this, the retailer is poised to gain in brand value over the
next few years. With the major advantage over Amazon of owning
its brick and mortar stores, the retailer is making great strides in
becoming an in-store, online and mobile heavyweight. Perhaps the
greatest indication of its auspicious future: a new i-Phone scan and
checkout system available at more than 200 locations in the US.
This is just one step toward meeting the customer through various
mediums and making the shopping experience more interactive.
But the battle between Amazon and Walmart isn’t actually about
online versus in-store - it’s about being omnichannel - accessible
at every touchpoint, competing within all realms of the consumer’s
daily routine. As marketers and advertisers have known for decades,
the more a consumer interacts with the brand, the greater the bond
is.
This is particularly important for today’s apparel brands. For
example, a consumer who shops BrandZ’s top apparel brand Zara
in-store and online and on their mobile device is the brand’s most
valuable customer, and in most cases, spends more share of wallet
at Zara alone. To Zara’s advantage, third ranked HM cannot fully
play this omnichannel game, as their website currently lacks the
function to complete a purchase online. This, in part, may explain
why Zara grew by 60% in brand value since last year, while HM
decreased by 6%.
This omnichannel phenomenon is not exclusive to retail. In fact,
reaching the customer at every opportunity is a tactic well-
known by this year’s top growth category (according to brand
value) - beer. Global beer brands like Bud Light and Budweiser
are pros at constantly meeting their consumers at their most
relevant touchpoints. From movie product placement, sports
sponsorships, television ad campaigns, print and more - the beer
industry is the best when it comes to multi-platform advertising
and communications. Budweiser, for example, is one of this year’s
biggest winners, with a 28% increase in brand value since last year,
advancing the brand 14 spots.
So, how can brands access the potential of this omnichannel power?
The answer is not to generate as much branded material across
every possible platform. This, in fact, leads to overexposure and
a decrease in brand value. It is, instead, creating one consistent
brand identity across platforms, whereby each interaction enhances
the next. That is, shopping at Gucci online enhances the in-store
experience, and browsing eBay deals on mobile enables a better
experience online. Branding is more complicated than ever, and the
discipline to adhere to one voice across varied mediums will be one
of the greatest challenges for advertisers of the omnichannel era.
B
By Pierre Dupreelle, Vice president, Millward Brown Optimor
Kimberly August, Consultant, Millward Brown Optimor
Strong Omnichannel Play Sets
Retail Brands Apart From Peers
First published in the April 22, 2013 edition of AdAge, www.adage.com
AmazonTopsWalmartin
RankingofMostValuable
Brands

24. obile advertising is facing a serious crisis according
to many experts and the issue has dominated recent
Newsline editorial and MediaTel conferences. So
what advice is being given to mobile marketers?
Here, Millward Brown’s Hannah Walley shares her
thoughts...
With 51% of people in the UK owning a smartphone, and penetration
increasing by 20% in 2011 alone, the uptake of web enabled mobile
phones is increasing rapidly. In terms of spend, mobile advertising
was worth £203 million in the UK last year, with display advertising
on mobiles more than doubling year on year to almost £69 million.
So how can advertisers get ahead of their competitors in the mobile
space?
THE FRAGMENTATION OF MOBILE ADVERTISING
Mobile as an advertising platform encompasses many areas
including mobile display ads, in-app advertising, video, gaming,
SMS, QR codes, search and location based marketing. Within each of
these areas there are multiple stakeholders which makes the process
of planning and measuring a mobile campaign very challenging.
Looking at the data of over 300 mobile campaigns, across various
industry verticals, we know that mobile advertising works and
can deliver at every stage of the purchase funnel. However, the
fragmented mobile landscape, along with uncertainty among
advertisers and media agencies around the ROI of mobile
advertising, is collectively slowing the adoption of mobile as an
integral part of the media mix for many brands.
While research into the effectiveness of online campaigns is now
fairly common place, brands are still reluctant to invest in research
to evaluate the effectiveness of their mobile activity. Even though
Millward Brown’s own research shows that mobile campaigns
greatly outperform online on the key branding metrics (from
awareness through to intent) brands remain wary about investing
money into mobile.
Marketers need to adopt an approach that will allow them to
navigate the risks of changing established media allocations, allow
new channels such as mobile to be given a chance to shine and that
will enable their media plans evolve. At Millward Brown we would
recommend brands to embrace a 70|20|10 framework for their media
and research investments.
Used by global mega-brands as a principle for education, training
and innovation it can also be applied to brands’ use of media.
This concept partly involves placing 10% of your budget into
experimenting with new and emerging channels. For many brands,
mobile currently falls into this area and by placing 10% of your
budget against new and emerging channels you are already
preparing the way for innovation.
THE POWER OF MOBILE DISPLAY ADVERTISING
There are a number of factors contributing to the high performance
we see of mobile advertising against traditional brand metrics; the
ads are highly visible with the proportion of the screen devoted to
the advertisements being much larger than display ads on a PC or
laptop screen. Secondly, the ad copy tends to be more focused to fit
within the space available.
The growing penetration of Smartphones in the UK will undeniably
see mobile ad spend quicken with large displays and touch-screen
capabilities making it easier for users of mobile devices to access
digital content twenty-four-seven while also improving the platform
for mobile ads.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that there is a degree of novelty
in all emerging media platforms, and it is likely that the impact of
mobile advertising will start to stabilise as this wears off. Brands
should be taking advantage of the novelty and impact of emerging
mobile devices for advertising, before the advantage fades.
The size of the mobile screen does restrict what you can do with a
standard banner ad, in terms of space to communicate the brand,
message and call-to-action.
Full screen or interstitial ads are a good alternative when used
properly, as they allow more space to communicate key messaging,
as well as provide more opportunities to engage the audience and
offer interactive features. However, these ad formats are more
disruptive and can potentially annoy users, so the content of these
ads needs to be well thought through to achieve the maximum
impact.
Over the coming months we expect to see developments in the types
of ad units available, and the variety of targeting options available
(by device, location, vertical), which will lead to a significant
increase in the number of publishers and advertisers embracing
mobile as an advertising platform.
As mobile advertising becomes a more accepted part of the media
mix and media plans, like online display and social media are now,
it will become more cluttered and harder to break through. So it is
imperative that brands take advantage of the channel now while it is
at its most impactful.
MOBILE DISPLAY ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICE
Whilst, on average, mobile campaigns prove to be very effective,
this is not a guarantee. The creative execution is key and there are a
number of things to bear in mind when developing mobile ads:
• Start off with clear objectives for the mobile activity; is it to
communicate a campaign message, deliver a call to action, build
brand engagement or add reach?
• Do not simply adopt the same creative approach you are using for
your online campaign for your mobile activity.
• The location of a brand name or logo within a mobile ad can have
a strong impact on advertising recall.
• Clear and persistent branding is important for brand awareness.
• Encouraging interactivity and engagement are advantageous for
mobile campaigns.
M
By Hannah Walley,
Senior Researcher, Media
and Digital, Millward Brown
First published in the April 15, 2013 edition of MediaTel, www.mediatel.co.uk
Understanding the
Brand Impact of
Mobile Advertising

25. arketers have long debated the secret to marketing
success. Many assert that differentiation is
the key factor. Others maintain that salience is
uppermost during critical purchase moments, while
a significant group believes that great marketing
builds positive consumer sentiment by delivering on
a meaningful brand promise. New research conducted by Millward
Brown suggests this debate is misguided.
The research, which links neuroscience and survey data to consumer
shopper behaviour, reveals that all three elements are important
drivers of success.
In fact brands that score highly on meaning, difference and salience
capture five times more volume, command a 14% price premium, and
are four times more likely to grow value share during the next 12
months.
To maximise the power of marketing we need to understand how
these brand qualities act on the minds of consumers to affect
purchase decisions and deliver a financial return. These qualities
can deliver a return either by causing people to buy more of the
brand (boosting volume share), or justifying a higher price point.
Our pilot work showed that to drive volume it is most important
for a brand to be first meaningful and then salient. Whereas being
meaningful and then different is the key in justifying a price
premium where being salient matters less.
Coca-Cola and British Airways are among the most meaningful
brands. Both achieved that status through great product delivery
that met consumers’ core needs as well as marketing that elevated
the brands into emotional territory to make consumers feel good
about them. Apple, the most valuable brand in the world according
to the 2012 BrandZ Top100 ranking, does well on each element but
excels at being different, projecting a unique personality and a clear
set of values.
Once marketers move away from myopic models of brand building
that only acknowledge one of the three ingredients of success, and
instead use consumer insight to understand the importance of
being meaningful, different and salient in determining purchase
behaviour for their own brands, they can then fully understand the
contribution brand equity is making to their volume share, the price
they can charge and to priming future value share growth.
Modelling these measures of brand equity, with brand image
association can then help marketers hone brand strategy and
quantify the financial return the brand can expect once the strategy
is successfully activated. What a recipe for success!
M
By Josh Samuel,
European Development Director, Brand Equity
First published in the April 11, 2013 edition of MM Global, www.mandmglobal.com
Deliveringa
MeaningfulBrand
Promise

26. First published in the March 15, 2013 edition of MediaPost, www.mediapost.com
XSW has morphed over the years, moving from a music
festival to a multipart, multi-industry gathering that
spans the technology, film and music sectors. The
interactive festival has served as an all-in industry
gathering for anyone in digital, ranging from developers
to marketers to technology entrepreneurs of all streaks.
Brands and their agencies have flocked to Austin, TX, every March to
see what’s new and what’s next. (SXSW Interactive played a pivotal
role in the launch and growth of Twitter and Foursquare, among
others.)
But this year was a little different - the festival attracted the old
guard and new industries as well. Software developers were side
by side with hardware engineers and marketers, next to a growing
cohort of journalists and publishers.
S
We saw eight big changes in 2013:
By Anne Czernek,
Senior Research Analyst, Emerging
Media Lab, Millward Brown Digital
SXSWInteractive8
TopTrendsof2013
Some tech trends just won’t die. A few technologies like NFC, RFID, QR codes,
and augmented reality have been showing promise without ever seeming to
reach their potential for several years now. Experimentation continues, but
no one has cracked the mass appeal just yet.
Increased focus on content rather than strategy. Viral content and memes
were prominent this year, with visits from several Internet sensations such as
Grumpy Cat. This drew attention both from publishers like Buzzfeed as well
as marketers who feel more comfortable with digital and social strategy, and
are now turning to activate with content.
Greater international presence. Set in out-of-the-way Austin, the festival
has historically been primarily a domestic event. But as it has grown in scale,
SXSW Interactive is attracting larger numbers of entrepreneurs and vendors
from around the world, seeking global exposure.
Convergence of diverse industries. No longer is SXSW Interactive dedicated
to Web/software development and digital marketing. Shared talent - and
increasingly, shared content with the journalism, health care, and the
aeronauticsindustries-havebroughtthemtogetherinsomewhatunexpected
and sometimes inspiring ways.
Innovation inspiration from outside digital. Elon Musk blew away attendees
with his keynote interview about innovation in space and reusable rockets.
Musk demonstrated the power of not staying siloed within a single industry:
his appeal was as much for his involvement in aeronautics and energy as it
was for his past success in digital payments.
Impact of social media on technology. Instead of changes in technology
fueling new social platforms, social connections are driving the growth of
technology. This year was the year of the indie company gaining traction
quickly through crowdfunding, driven by social finally operating at scale.
Absence of a breakout app. Unlike previous years, 2013 did not have a
true breakout app - techies were inspired by what they could do with new
hardware, rather than focusing on further developing with the current
generation of technology. Many (if not most) of the new apps we saw were
redundant with existing platforms and services like Facebook and Spotify.
Democratizationofhardware.Whereas past years have focused on software/
app development, 3D printing has made experimenting with new hardware
more accessible, more cost-efficient, and faster. Fading are the high costs
and long lead times to produce a prototype; hardware design is increasingly
iterative and flexible.

27. illward Brown recently released an update to its
20-year-old BrandDynamics solution, incorporating
its new Meaningfully Different Framework for brand
equity measurement. Josh Samuel reviews the work
that went in to the creation of the framework, and
explains why ‘power’, ‘premium’ and ‘potential’ will
be crucial metrics for assessing brand success.
In the same way that brands must innovate to remain relevant,
research models must evolve with the times, particularly those that
are focused on brands and the consumers that buy them. This is why
Millward Brown decided to overhaul BrandDynamics.
BrandDynamics has been a leading measure of brand equity for
nearly 20 years, quantifying and diagnosing the loyalty consumers
have to brands and segmenting their relationships from basic brand
knowledge (presence) through to brand loyalty (bonding).
While BrandDynamics has certainly been updated and refined over
the years, and while there remains a strong correlation between high
bonding scores and sales, we wanted to extract deeper insight that
related more directly to specific financial outcomes. We also wanted
the model to reflect the latest understanding of the human brain and
consumer decision-making.
We’ve always been able to show how brand impacts sales, but
what marketers really need is to quantify the precise financial
contribution their brand is making now, what it will deliver in the
future, and understand how to optimise that.
So we set-out to develop a new equity measurement system, starting
with the crucial but often neglected task of clearly defining the ways
in which brands constitute a financial asset (or equity) for the brand
owner.
• The brand delivers greater volume thanks to consumer
predisposition to choose the brand more often.
• The brand justifies a higher price point because consumers are
willing to pay more for it.
• The brand provides a platform for future growth because
consumers are predisposed to stick to the brand or try it in
future.
Next we studied our BrandDynamics database of over 100,000
brands to identify the characteristics of the brands that deliver
against those three outcomes.
Our analysis pointed to three qualities of brands, underpinned by
five existing survey metrics that delivered the following financial
returns:
• Meaningful: the brand has affinity and meets needs. This
indicates the extent that brands build an emotional connection
and are seen to deliver against consumer needs.
• Difference: the brand is unique and sets trends. This indicates
which brands set themselves apart from the category by leading
the trends or simply offering something that others don’t (can be
intangible).
• Salience: spontaneous awareness, which indicates how quickly
and easily a brand comes to mind.
VALIDATING THE KEY DRIVERS
Next we needed to ensure that these qualities were actual drivers,
rather than simply the outcome of brand success. We also needed to
achieve the following:
• Validate that these three qualities accounted for the full role of
brand in delivering the desired financial outcomes.
• Optimise our survey measures of these dimensions and ensure
they capture the implicit/automatic consumer decision-making
processes.
• Quantify the contribution that each of these brand qualities
makes to the financial outcome.
We embarked on a pilot study in five countries, interviewing
more than 8,000 consumers about 400 brands. The study coupled
neuroscience measures to survey metrics right through to actual
purchase behaviour, for the same individual respondents.
The neuroscience metrics allowed us to measure the role of so-called
system one processes, such as the automatic emotional response and
intuitive brand associations that people have.
We then tested a variety of survey-based attitudinal measures to see
which best captured these affects and all others. Finally, we were
able to monitor the same respondents’ actual shopping behaviour
through shopper panels and SMS diaries. Factor regression
modelling of the survey metrics was used to predict the volume of
brands people bought and the price they paid.
This work confirmed that we could summarise the full role of the
brand in purchase decisions with the measures of meaningful,
difference and salience. This modelling process also allowed us to
generate and validate three headline measures of brand equity built
from different combinations of meaningful, difference and salience,
to predict each of the financial outcomes identified earlier:
• Power: This predicts the volume share delivered by brand equity.
Generally, we found that being meaningful was most important
to this, with salience next and difference less crucial, but this
varies by category. Our pilot work showed that brands with high
power generate five times the volume share of those with lower
power.
• Premium: This predicts the price point that the brand equity can
justify charging. Again it varies by category, but usually being
meaningful is the most important quality although difference
is almost as important. Our pilot work showed that brands with
high premium score can justify charging a 13% price premium.
• Potential: This predicts the likelihood of value share growth in
the next 12 months. The pilot work showed that brands with high
potential are four times more likely to grow value share than
those with low potential.
M
First published in the April 11, 2013 edition of Research, www.research-live.com
By Josh Samuel,
European Development Director, Brand Equity
WhatDoes
‘MeaningfullyDifferent’
ActuallyMean?

28. Making advertising interesting is the job of the creatives in the
ad agencies. Creative departments hire individuals who have a
special talent for seeing the world differently. They use the power
of creativity to get our attention, and to make products and services
interesting and relevant.
We can all easily remember our favourite ads. Mine is a Dentyne
Frost Bites ad called “Frostbitten”, in which a man in the back of a
cab loads a handful of small gum pellets into his mouth, and then
his head freezes solid.
Creativity is important to advertising for a number of reasons:
• It has stopping power. Creativity can make people stop what they
are doing and pay attention to advertising - for example, Molson
Canadian’s “Made from Canada” commercials.
• It fuels the memory. Creativity can leave enduring brand
associations that are difficult to forget - for example, the Energizer
Bunny.
• It generates interest. Creativity can make us curious about
brands in a way hay gets us talking about them, searching for
more information, or even wanting to try the product or service
- for example, Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
commercials.
• It frames the brand experience. Creativity can enhance
perceptions onf the product experience - for example, Viagra
commercials.
CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING
But what is creativity, and how do we measure it? There are
important questions for those of us in the advertising industry.
Every year, the Cannes Lions International Festival or Creativity
recognises the most creative advertising from around the world.
What criteria do the judges use in making their decisions? There are
no rules for producing highly creative advertising, so most would
say they they know it when they see it. Dictionary.com defines
creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules,
patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new
ideas, forms, methods and interpretations.”
As researchers, though, we naturally wanted to know more, so
Millward Brown evaluated award-winning advertising to determine
if there was a common set of traits that all or most creative
advertising possesses. We used our Link™ quantitative copy-testing
tool to analyse ads that won Canned Lions between 2002 and 2011
(55 ads across 36 brands). Quantitative pretesting is often criticized
for encouraging a cookie-cutter approach to making ads, and for not
fully recognising creativity; we wanted to test this perspective.
Our Link™ analysis of Cannes Lions winners showed evidence that
there are no patterns or rules to making highly creative advertising.
However, our analysis did uncover that winning ads scored higher
than average on enjoyment, involvement, positive emotions, and
being different from other ads - as exhibit 1 shows. The results in
this exhibit are indexed against the relevant norm: an index of 105
or more puts the ads into the top third of our database; an index of
114 or more purs the ads into the top ten percent.
EXHIBIT 1: Link™ analysis of Cannes Lions-Winning Ads
These results make perfect sense. Truly creative advertising -
advertising that has stopping power, fuels the memory, generates
interest, and frames the brand experience - has to be unlike any
other as, differentiating itself in a very engaging way.
But is creative advertising always effective advertising? While
Cannes Lions recognises creative advertising, campaigns that
generate proven business results. Millward Brown also analysed
Effie Award-winning advertising from 2007 to 2010 using our Link™
copy-testing tool, including 55 ads across 16 brands.
Effie Award winners scored high on the same measures as the
Cannes Lions creativity winners (enjoyment, involvement, positive
emotions, and being different). In addition, ads that are recognised
for effectiveness also scored high on branding and uniqueness
of impressions, meaning that the creative was well linked to the
advertised brand (see exhibit 2).
EXHIBIT 2 - Link Analysis of Effie Award-Winning Ads
Brand linkage means more than just repeatedly showing the brand
name or packaging throughout the ad. It takes a creative approach
to integrating the brand into the heart of the ad’s storyline to deliver
strong brand linkage. Take, for example, Guinness’ “Evolution” ad,
which won the Cannes Grand Prix award in 2006. In the Millward
Brown database, this ad scored in the top 25 percent for branding,
yet the brand is shown only once at the beginning and once at the
end.
It may seem surprising that effective advertising does not
necessarily have to be persuasive. Persuasion is a short-term
measure of effectiveness. At the moment of seeing the ad, you are
either persuaded or you are not. Persuasive advertising typically
delivers new and.or relevant information that drives consumers to
change their behaviour. Once their behaviour changes, the ad ceases
to be persuasive.
Millward Brown has also identified ads that are not persuasive
in the short term but are effective at brand building (growing
the brand’s equity ad market share over the long term). There are
the types of ads that typically get submitted for the Effies, so the
findings from our analysis should not be surprising.
Advertising that is effective in long-term brand building typically
generates a strong emotional response in consumers. Emotionally
powerful ads are more memorable. Our work in the area of copy
testing has shown that a number of different emotions are effective
at generating a response from consumers, and therefore no one
emotion is necessary to trigger successful advertising. Effective
advertising triggers the emotion hay is most relevant to the brand’s
positioning.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ADVERTISERS
Creativity is very important for advertising to be successful.
Creativity helps deliver stopping power, fuels the memory, generates
interest, and frames the brand experience - all of which are
important for advertising to work well. The analysis presented in
this article adds the need for strong brand linkage and for emotional
response to creativity if advertising is also to be effective in building
the brand.
Ensuring that the brand has the appropriate strategy driving its
creation direction and making sure that the creative efforts are all
consistent with the brand’s overall stratify will increase the chances
of advertising effectiveness.
While creativity is hard to define - most saying they know it when
they see it - through this analysis, we know the metrics that help us
measure it.
BIG IDEA RESEARCH
As advertising costs increase, as competition becomes fiercer, and
as brands look to globalise their marketing campaigns, many of the
world’s advertisers are placing greater importance on creativity
to help their advertising be most disruptive, generate buzz, and
transcend cultural and geographic boundaries.
This response underscores the importance of identifying big,
creative ideas at an early stage of creative development. “Big idea”
research takes place in the often neglected space between brand
strategy research and the copy-testing research that happens late in
the creative development process. By knowing the metrics that help
measure creativity, advertisers can greatly benefit from involving
research earlier in the creative development process, generating
bigger, better ideas.
Rob Hernandez, global brand director for FireFly Millward Brown,
says “There are some who argue that we can’t (or shouldn’t) research
our way into a big idea - that big ideas surface spontaneously or
come in the form of divine inspiration to agency creatives. I disagree.
There are ways to harness consumer research - both qualitative and
quantitative - not only to facilitate the co-creation of big ideas, but
also to make good ideas even bigger and better.”
Big idea research helps advertisers determine how best to say what
they want to communicate, identify the most resonant elements
of potential ideas, and evaluate their fit with the brand. Millward
Brown feels that putting the emphasis on development first and
then evaluating quantitatively, using a proven framework for making
advertising successful, id the right way to research big ideas.
The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People
read what interests them, and sometimes it's an ad
- Howard Luck Gossage, advertising innovator (1917-1969)
First published February 8, 2013 by The Marketing Research
and Intelligence Association (MRIA), www.mria-arim.ca
Link Norm
ADS THAT WIN AWARDS FOR CREATIVITY (CANNES) OVER-INDEX
ON BEING DIFFERENT, INVOLVING AND ENJOYABLE...
...different to
other ads
102
106
113
115
...involving
...enjoyable
...different than
other brands
Link Norm
...WHILE IT IS STRENGTH IN BRANDING THAT MAKES THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CREATIVE AD AND AN EFFECTIVE AD
Branding
Uniqueness
Different to
other ads
Engagement
Enjoyment
Brand Difference
106
106
102
104
102
102
99
96
115
113
106
102
}Effie winners
over-index on
Branding and
Uniqueness
By Paul Gareau,
Vice President, Millward Brown Canada
EffectiveAdvertising:
HarnessingthePower
ofCreativity

29. It’s easy to make assumptions about the media in China.
That all channels are tightly controlled,restricted and
largely ‘closed’ to authentic or creative communication.
That if businesses have one big idea, and put it across
using one channel – most often TV – they can expect it to
reach and influence all their target audiences.
This is no longer the case: China’s media environment is extremely
dynamic, powerful, complex and fragmented. There are opportunities
for businesses looking to enter the market to tell a powerful story
that wins customers and builds loyalty, but they need to understand
and adapt their marketing to the ways people use media today.
Chinese consumers access information via multiple channels and
multiple screens. Digital media has grown exponentially, and the
number of social media users is rising dramatically – the Twitter-
type microblog service Weibo now has more than 600 million users,
significantly more than the total number of internet users in the US.
Mobile is now the top channel for accessing the internet.
As their wealth and sophistication grows, Chinese consumers are
becoming increasingly aware of their relationship with brands. To
achieve and sustain brand strength, this relationship needs to be
developed and reinforced in a strategic way through the media
channels they use.
Chinese consumers have learned to buy for reasons other than
price – they’re looking for choice, more specialised products, and
true value. Businesses need to create a strong value proposition:
identifying their markets, understanding what they want and
creating a package of price, features, positioning and packaging
that will engage consumers on a deeper level. They then need to
communicate this value proposition, being precise in their targeting
and messaging, and understanding which media channels to use and
how.
Creating and communicating differentiation is also important.
According to Millward Brown research across over 1,000 brands in
China, both local and international, being considered meaningfully
different by target consumers produced a 37 percent higher
contribution to brand value. Welldifferentiated brands are also 12
times more likely to grow in value than brands with only average
differentiation.
Meaningful differentiation is more than “this is new!” – in highly
innovative categories like technology loyalty is low because the next
‘best idea’ is often just around the corner. The difference needs to
benefit consumers’ lives in a distinctive way that they recognise
and appreciate, and businesses need to communicate this in
a meaningful way: a memorable ad can easily leave people
entertained, for example, but without any clear understanding of
why to select one brand over another.
Trust is non-negotiable for Chinese shoppers, and it’s on the decline
– the Trustworthy Score for the Millward Brown’s BrandZ Top 50
Most Valuable Chinese brands dropped 2 percent in 2012 thanks to
recent high profile concerns over food and dairy safety, amplified
through the reach and influence of social media. Companies
have responded by understanding how to participate in and hold
open and genuine dialogues with consumers in credible online
environments, and any business
looking to compete in China will have
to do the same.
They can also build sustained
consumer trust by creating and
communicating a strong and
consistent brand identity. Many well-
known brands in China lack this
foundation, so there’s an opportunity
for global companies to steal a march. A clearly defined vision and
values, persistently delivered, will boost credibility in the eyes of
consumers. The vision should honestly reflect the brand’s reason for
being, and the contribution it wants to make to the community it
serves and to the consumers it engages.
There is also a huge opportunity for global brands to use media
to bond emotionally with consumers – Chinese brands are good at
providing functional benefits, but few excel at long term emotional
engagement. The companies that connect most powerfully with
consumers on an emotional level will be those which recognise
cultural distinctiveness still persists across China, and seek to
isolate the factors that that most contribute to consumer bonding
in different areas and cities, as well as understanding differences in
media usage – particularly in the high-growth lower tier cities.
As the media environment becomes more complicated, marketers
may find that creating a bundle of smaller ideas with a consistent
brand expression is more effective than looking for that one ‘big
idea’. They should consider each target audience and the relevant
channels for addressing it, and be willing to invest in separate
multi-channel programmes that will drive both audience reach
and impact. Businesses also need to create compelling content:
journalists and consumers alike are looking for good stories,
and respond positively to activities that reflect a commitment to
improving Chinese society.
Combining traditional media with social media activities can
strengthen influence, and brands need to meaningfully incorporate
social media touchpoints into their digital marketing strategies –
not just listening, but actively becoming part of the conversation. In
the BrandZ China Top 50, the Top 20 brands in social media presence
average $10 billion in brand value, compared with an average value
of $3.9 billion for the other 30 brands.
Air China, for example, the country’s 18th most valuable brand,
refocused its marketing budget on social media in 2012 to save
money and more effectively reach its target audiences. A two-month
microblog campaign called ‘The Moment of Reunion’ attracted
450,000 new visitors, while the brand also enabled customers to
plan flights and check in using Weibo and Facebook. By creating and
posting engaging ‘social objects’ such as videos, cartoons, photos
and topical stories businesses can also start conversations with
consumers, and build clear and consistent brand images in their
minds.
China’s GDP is predicted to grow by around 7.5% in 2013 – far above
that of most Western economies – so the opportunity to do business
there remains enormous. Penetrating this vast and complex market
will require a deep understanding of the dynamics of Chinese
consumers, markets and media in multiple regions.
S
First published in the February 21, 2013 edition of MediaTel, www.mediatel.co.uk
By Jason Spencer,
Managing Director, Shanghai, Millward Brown
WhyChina’sChanging
MediaLandscapeisan
OpportunitytoBuild
Brands
A clearly defined
vision and values,
persistently delivered,
will boost credibility in
the eyes of consumers

30. hile automotive marketers are accustomed to
changing the creative content of their campaigns
on a regular basis, there is no automatic driver
that encourages the adoption of new media
channels. Changing established media allocations
is risky; weighing the options requires time, effort
and skill. The fear of making the wrong decision in today’s economic
climate is all too clear.
But avoiding innovation in car marketing carries its own risk. The
automotive landscape is fast moving, and those who don’t advance
with it will be left behind. Automotive marketers need a way to
embrace change without being swallowed up by it. Maybe they
should follow the lead of the Coca-Cola Company. In its quest to
double the size of its business by 2020, Coca-Cola is planning to
apportion its marketing spend according to the 70:20:10 investment
principle. This will see: 70% spent on low-risk media options, such
as TV, outdoor, print, radio and sponsorship; 20% to innovate based
on what has worked successfully in the past; and 10% to fund high-
risk media content involving new ideas.
This 70:20:10 principle has also worked effectively for Google,
which applies 70% of its workforce effort to core business, 20% to
adjacent products, and 10% to highly experimental innovation for
the long-term. The application of 70:20:10 can aid media planning,
notably in terms of the allocation of resources to growing channels,
such as mobile and social media. But it shouldn’t be considered a
strict formula. The precise allocations are not important, but some
fixed proportion of spend should be regularly devoted to marketing
innovation. This will encourage experimentation in a disciplined and
structured way. By using such a framework, car brands can steer a
safe and prosperous middle path while evolving both their media
and research budgets.
The 70:20:10 Allocation
70%: THE COMFORT ZONE
Automotive spend is usually a top three category in all countries
globally, covering the established channels such as TV, print
(newspapers and magazines), outdoor, radio and, increasingly,
online. Some digital elements are now firmly established in the 70%
– every car brand now has a website, an online search strategy and
runs plenty of online display advertising.
The critical issue for car advertisers is to ensure that the creative
content within and across each channel is effective in its ability to
engage and motivate the target audience, be it existing owners or
key prospects entering the customer journey to purchase.
Since the channels in this zone are well understood, the research
challenge here is to identify incremental adjustments, either across
media or within an individual channel. Since these campaign
elements are taking up a large proportion of the budget, even a
small-step improvement can make a big difference to campaign
effectiveness – optimising the balance between TV, radio and online
video can improve the efficiency of audiovisual delivery. A recent
online ad test for an Australian car brand identified two exposures
as the optimal frequency level for their campaign, hence saving
media investment in unnecessarily high frequency. Another car
manufacturer in China was able to identify newspapers and online
as the most cost-efficient channels for supplementing TV within
their campaign.
But to say that 70% of the budget should fund communications in
channels that are considered to be safe, familiar, and effective is not
to say that 70% of a media budget should remain static from year
to year. Based on ongoing learning from cross-media research and
evolving brand objectives, channel mix within the 70% could vary
significantly over time and from campaign to campaign.
20%: INNOVATING AROUND WHAT WORKS
Innovating around media approaches that are known to be effective
could include a broad range of options. It could mean taking a
small risk, such as increasing your spend on a channel that seemed
to work well in your 10% last year, or sponsoring a sporting event,
rather than TV sponsorship.
For automotive, social media now falls squarely into the 20%
category. Car brands have taken to social media with varying
degrees of success, and some still have questions about the return
on investment. Premium brands, like BMW, Mercedes, Audi and
Porsche, have built up huge Facebook fan bases. Infinity is currently
the fastest-growing page with an average of 13,200 new followers
each day, while BMW has the most ‘liked’ page, with over 12 million
fans. The launch of the Ford Explorer on Facebook generated more
traffic than a Super Bowl ad, while value brand Kia Soul’s ‘Hamster’
commercial got nearly two million Likes on Facebook and almost
20 million hits on YouTube. VW China People’s Car Project is an
example of social media being used as the hub of a customer-
focused multimedia campaign, including TV, online films, online
advertising, events, PR coverage, augmented reality, mobile apps,
giveaways, guerrilla, outdoor and viral video.
Now social media has achieved genuine scale, the research challenge
is to establish ongoing approaches that enable social media
elements to be monitored and optimised over time. This requires
qualitative understanding and quantitative measurement. It is
no longer a race for fans and followers, rather, car brands need
to assess whether and how social media activities are delivering
against brand-building objectives among these fans.
10%: INTO THE UNKNOWN
The 10% zone is the place where genuine experimentation takes
place with new and emerging channels. But this risk-taking should
be in line with brand and campaign objectives. For the majority of
car brands, mobile falls into the 10% category. The mobile marketing
landscape continues to evolve as ownership of smartphones and
tablets grows rapidly. But there are dilemmas for car marketers –
should they build a mobile app or focus on their mobile website?
Make QR codes a central element of their outdoor campaign?
There are innovative examples of car brands pushing the boundaries
of technology, such as using augmented reality campaigns and
interactive ads on different mobile devices to promote both existing
models and future product concepts. VW produced an AR app for the
launch of its new Golf Cabriolet, creating an AR showroom app for
the iPad, iPhone and Android, allowing participants to explore the
vehicle and play with its features.
Starting with the 10% not only ensures that innovation happens, it
also ensures that these projects have a chance to play an integral
or guiding role in the overall campaign, rather than being seen as
afterthoughts. The research challenge here is to identify which of
these are just one-offs, and which have longer-term potential; which
deserve to be in next year’s 20% investment. To really understand
how a new channel works, it may be necessary to spend as much on
research as on the media itself.
SUMMARY
When assessing how your media budget stacks up against 70:20:10,
it is important to consider all the costs involved in a channel.
Projects in the 10% zone are likely to be relatively resource-intensive,
even if media costs are low. Therefore, to ensure that the 70:20:10
approach is applied comprehensively and fairly across the spectrum
of paid, owned, and earned media channels, car brand owners need
to weigh all the costs associated with each channel. Marketers need
to consider the 70:20:10 channel optimisation every time they plan
and implement new marketing campaigns, for example, new model
launches, brand campaigns and tactical campaigns.
With large organisations competing on the global stage,
experimentation should be spread across brand and model
portfolios, and across countries. The best time and place for a
particular experiment will clearly depend on the objectives of the
campaign and media consumption of the target audience – hence the
need for consumer insight.
Car marketers need to consider channel optimisation every time they
plan campaigns. Those that adopt a 70:20:10 approach will know
that newer channels, such as mobile and social media, will be given
a chance to shine alongside the more familiar and trusted media
channels. While these channels may be in the 10% now, they are
likely to move swiftly into the 20% category, and eventually the 70%
category, as they become more familiar and used. Likewise, there
are many examples of car brands integrating traditional channels
with new media, such as Honda’s iPhone app designed to catch the
characters as they appear on the TV screen in the ‘Unpredictable
Life’ TV ad, and new CinePrint technology for the new Lexus ES.
The key message for car marketers is to ensure that at least some
marketing money is invested in these higher risk areas, to ensure
your brands are using all the gears, and not stuck in reverse.
W
By Nick Bull,
Head of Automotive, Millward Brown
Article reprinted with permission from Warc, February 2013, www.warc.com
MarketingCars:
ChangeMediaGear
Car marketers need to take some risk with their media
placement and ensure that new channels are tested,
using a 70:20:10 allocation model.

31. ne of the indicators we use at BrandZ to determine
how passionate people are about a brand are the
words they use to describe the brand’s personality.
Choosing to describe a brand as “rebellious”, “fun”
or “creative” from a medley of adjectives that also
includes softer options such as “innocent”, “kind” and
“friendly”, for example, is a clear indicator of the greater or lesser
passion elicited by the brand.
Our key measure also assesses whether a brand polarises
consumers. The greater the BrandZ “clarity” score, the more a
brand divides opinions. It might seem counterintuitive, but
polarisation is an important measure of passion; after all, products
and services that are all things to all people are generally bland
and less distinctive: an unhappy position, as far as brands are
concerned.
FOUR AREAS OF PASSION
So what exactly do consumers think about when they rate
some brands more passionately than others? Our studies suggest
that there are four key areas:
1. Adventurous/Rebellious
2. Desirable/Sexy
3. Playful/Fun
4. Creative
All four areas are active, positive actions that embrace powerful
and passionate descriptors of relationships with brands. We know
from experience that there is a huge disparity between brands
in the degree to which these words are mentioned. This shows
us that passion is not something that is just casually given, but
rather something that is earned by brands that are meaningfully
different and deserving of such accolades.
As a recent publication of Millward Brown Optimor’s Top 100
Global Brands shows, there are clear frontrunners in each of these
four areas:
Adventurous/Rebellious: Red Bull, Nike, Apple
Desirable/Sexy: L’Oréal, BMW, Apple
Playful/Fun: Disney, Coca-Cola, Apple
Creative: Google, Intel, Apple
Passion does not only result in sales. The brands that are the
most passionately rated are also the ones that earn the most online
buzz (which, in turn, feeds sales and brand value).
Is this connection surprising? I think not. The social space is
where we interact freely on matters of interest, consequence or
fun. Brands that participate in this space (without disrupting
or interfering with the party) are engaging freely with willing
audiences.
Finally, a key learning from our studies is that low price does not
buy passion. Instead, our data clearly shows that consumers with
the greatest passion for a brand name price as their least powerful
influence. Only those lacking a passionate relationship put price at
the top.
A PASSIONATE AFFAIR: 10 KEY RULES
1. A distinctive brand is more likely to attract consumer passion.
2. Passion adds value to a brand.
3. Building a single-minded brand promise entails understanding which
passion to emphasise.
4. Tone of voice is vital to underline passion in an interesting way.
5. Media selection not only plays a part in targeting relevant consumers,
but also implies the character and passionate nature of the brand.
6. Brand relationships are built on personal experience.
7. Being true to yourself as a brand is essential to a passionate experience. A
brand’s entire value chain must deliver on this truth to ultimately affect
customers.
8. Passionate users are a brand’s best advocates and should be cultivated.
9. Do not worry about polarising your audience - passion is not about
being all things to all people.
10. Think about the brands that inspire your own passion and consider
what personal insights can be applied to your brand.
O
Characteristics
ofaPassionate
Brand
You might wonder why brands care
about passion. Why not simply focus
on sales? The truth is that the way
consumers feel about brands is a
proven driver of sales.
Peter Walshe,
Global BrandZ Director, Millward Brown
First published in the January 12, 2012 edition of MediaCom, www.mediacom.se

32. oday most marketers are creating multi-channel
campaigns to engage with their customers where they
want, when they want and in a format that they prefer.
They are accustomed to changing the creative content of
their campaigns to suit new formats on a regular basis.
But as new media channels emerge, marketers and media
agencies are often unclear how to allocate spend among the different
and many channel options. Fear of making the wrong decision can
make exploration in new channels daunting and weighting options
requires time and effort.
Yet innovation cannot be avoided. Brands that don’t advance with
the world as it moves forward can be left behind.
Finding the optimum mix of channels becomes more complicated
with the continuous emergence of new media options that requires
marketers to continuously innovate. By the time you’ve established
whether a new channel is a good investment there’s another three to
evaluate.
Coca-Cola implemented a new approach for investing in creative
content with the adaption of the established 70-20-10 protocol for
apportioning resources for investment.
In its quest to double the size of its business by 2020, Coca-Cola
would apportion its communications spend so that 70% would be
low-risk, bread and butter content; 20% would involve innovating
but be based on what had worked in the past and 10% would fund
high risk content involving brand new ideas.
Coca-Cola is not the only company to put this old rule to new use.
Google used it to manage innovation and other companies for
leadership programmes. There’s no reason why this rule shouldn’t be
used to allocate investment to new channels such as mobile, gaming,
augmented reality or the latest social media sites to set its eyes on
advertisers (Twitter and now Tumblr for example).
CREATING SPACE FOR INNOVATION
70-20-10 is not a strict formula and the precise allocations are not
important; what is essential is that some fixed proportion of spend
is spent on innovation. This will encourage forward thinking and
experimentation in a disciplined and structured way.
By using such a framework brands can steer a safe and prosperous
middle path while evolving both their media and research budgets.
For most brands the 70% zone of low risk marketing is likely to
involve established channels such as TV, print, outdoor and radio or
even, for some brands, word-of-mouth marketing. These channels
are safe, familiar and effective.
It doesn’t need to remain static from year to year of course. Based
on ongoing learning and evolving brand objectives, channel
composition within this zone could vary significantly over time and
from campaign to campaign.
A total of 30% of investment should be focused on innovating. We
suggest that most of this - 20% of your total budget - is restricted to
media approaches that are known to be effective, but involve some
risk because they are new for your brand. It might mean taking
a risk by changing the application of something that you’ve done
before - for example sponsoring a sporting event rather than a music
festival.
The insurance brand targeted at women, Sheila’s Wheels, invested
30% of its TV budget into sponsoring drama when it launched in
the UK in 2005. This was considered innovative at a time when most
insurance brands focused almost exclusively on TV spot advertising.
The risk paid off and Sheila’s Wheels reached an awareness level of
75% in just three months, surpassing sales targets by 65% within the
first year.
For most brands today, the 20% of innovation is usually around
social media. Marketers have signed up to the benefit of enabling
interaction with consumers, but they still raise questions about
return on investment (ROI) and are learning how to create and
deliver campaigns that are truly social by design.
The remaining 10% of channel investment is for experimentation
with new and emerging unknown channels. Although it is relatively
high risk, brands should remain in line with their core brand and
campaign objectives; iPhone apps and Pinterest pages are right for
some brands, but not all.
MONITORING PROGRESS
As you measure the success of your 70-20-10 strategy, it is likely
that some of what begins as innovation becomes a core activity and
moves into the 70% comfort zone.
After a few years of investing 30% of its budget in sponsorship,
Sheila’s Wheels expanded its sponsorship allocation to £10 million
with the launch of its home insurance product, making sponsorship
its largest channel investment in one of British television’s biggest
sponsorship slots: the ITV national weather broadcast.
Measurement is critical to reaping the rewards of this strategy and
ensuring that there’s always room for investing in the ‘new’.
Channel optimisation is a core part of campaign planning. While
some marketers are actively involved in the process, others leave
the decisions to their media agency. Whichever route you take, it is
clear that the 70-20-10 approach will allow you to embrace change
without being swallowed up by it.
New channels will be given a chance to shine and your brand can
continue to use communications to support core business objectives
in the most optimal and innovative ways.
B
By John Svendsen,
Global Brand Director, Millward Brown
First published in the November 20, 2012 edition of MediaTel, www.mediatel.co.uk
It Works for Coca-
Cola and Google
and it Can Work for
You Too: The70-
20-10Rule

33. used to think that Haagen-Dazs meant something. I presumed
the origin was Scandinavian. In fact, the name means nothing
in any language and originates from the Bronx. But the name
does carry implicit meaning, just as founder Reuben Mattus
intended when he and his wife started brainstorming names.
Faced with a growing price war, Mattus decided not to take
part but instead chose to make the very best ice cream he could and
charge a premium for it. The Haagen-Dazs name was intended to
signal that the brand was imported from Denmark, well-known for
its diary industry.
As Matthus recognized, a good brand name can be a powerful asset.
At the very least a brand name serves to distinguish a product
or service from its competitors. At best a brand name can infer
meaning that helps define what the brand stands for. And at worst a
brand name can open a company up to ridicule.
Companies know that brand names have power and these days they
are sometimes pay millions to develop a new one. In these days
of global commerce getting the right brand name is particularly
important. Some names simply don’t travel well.
A NAME THAT TRAVELS IS HARD TO FIND
If you have ever named a child, you know that choosing a name is
not easy. As a school teacher my father was well aware that names
can be used for good or ill. Kids will seize on anything unusual and
turn it into a nickname that is hard to shake off. So my parents
labored long and hard to come up with names for my brother and
I. “Nigel” proved to be a good choice, particularly now I reside in
the US where it is unusual but easy to pronounce and therefore
memorable.
The origins of brand names are varied and many. The Nokia name
originated in 1871 and was named after a town near one of the
company’s original wood pulp mills. In 1933 German chancellor
Adolf Hitler ordered Ferdinand Porsche to develop a car for the
masses and the Volkswagen was born (literally, the name means
“people’s car” in German). In 1946 Tot’em Stores (so called because of
the signature totem pole placed outside each store) became 7-Eleven,
reflecting the new hours of operation. These names have stood the
test of time and language to become well-known around the world.
Many familiar brands simply originate from their founder’s names.
Henry Ford gave us the Ford Motor Company. Frederick Miller gave
us the Miller Brewing Company And Sam Walton gave us Wal-Mart.
Brand names like these are simple and straightforward. They are
“what it says on the tin.”They tell you who founded the business and
what the company does.
My own company’s name -- Millward Brown -- shows how difficult
it can be to take a local brand international. Millward Brown
sounds simple enough to the British. But even in the U.S. the
name “Millward” is often abbreviated to “Millard” or turned into
“Millwood.” Imagine then, the problems the name poses in Mexico,
China or Brazil. The Brazilian alphabet did not even include a “W”
until 1990, a double “L” is unheard of, and no words end in a “D.” In
many countries Millward Brown is often simply referred to as “MB.”
But one solution that worked in Latin America created more
problems in another part of the world. The MB abbreviation was
impossible to use in Korea, since Korean President, Lee Myung Bak
is referred to in the media as simply “MB.” Some of his political
initiatives use these initials, like “MBnomics” for his fiscal policy
and the “MB Doctrine” for his foreign policy. Our social research
division is normally introduced as “MB Social Research.” But that
could sound awfully like a Big Brother-ish campaign on the part of
the Korean government to research its citizens’ personal lives. So we
changed the name, yet again.
ACRONYMS AND ACRIMONY
Abbreviating a name to its initials is a common strategy when an
original brand name proves hard to pronounce, no longer serves
its purpose of becomes unwieldy. BP is more suitable for an
international company than British Petroleum. Similarly the British
Broadcasting Company became the BBC and International Business
Machines Corporation became IBM. GSK is less of a mouthful than
GlaxoSmithKline.
When PricewaterhouseCoopers (itself a combination of Price
Waterhouse and Coopers Lybrand) spun off its consulting unit
they chose not to abbreviate but to create a completely new name.
PwC Consulting worked with Wolff Olins, a branding consultancy,
spending a reported $110m to come up with the name “Monday.” As
noted by the BBC noted the name was intended to denote a “fresh
thinking and new beginnings, rather than the unwelcome start to the
working week.” However, the name was widely greeted with derision
with many references to the lyrics from The Boomtown Rats’ “I
don’t like Mondays.”The name lasted five months and disappeared
when IBM bought Monday and merged it into its prosaically named
IBM Global Business Services. The BBC greeted the news with a
tongue-in-cheek elegy titled, “R.I.P Monday” identifying the cause of
the demise as “Mondayitis, a debilitating ailment associated with
hangovers, lack of motivation and the recurring grumble of ‘still four
more days to go!’.”
Sometimes a brand can turn mispronunciation to its advantage. The
name Pepsi reportedly derives from the digestive enzyme pepsin.
While it possibly a good thing that the name’s origins remain
little known, not everyone wants to think about digestive juices
while seeking refreshment, Pepsi also proves difficult for Spanish
speakers. They often resort to saying “Pecsi” or simply “Pesi.” In
Argentina the brand decided to make the most of this difficulty and
developed a campaign announcing that 24% of Argentineans don’t
say Pepsi but Pecsi. The ad featured Mostaza (mustard) Merlo, a
famous soccer player and coach well-known for adapting English
soccer terms to be more suitable for Spanish pronunciation. The TV
ad ended with the tagline “Drink Pepsi now. Drink Pecsi also.”The
campaign idea resonated well and was subsequently adapted for
Spain with soccer player Fernando Torres who pronounces Pepsi as
Pesi.
“BITE THE WAX TADPOLE”
Pronunciation is probably the most common challenge faced by
brands around the world. But names that mean something in their
original language and culture often fail to travel. A recent article
in The Wall Street Journal describes how Redalen, a bed sold by
Swedish furniture chain IKEA and named after a town in Norway,
sounds far too sexually explicit for Thai speakers. Of course, names
do not have to be rude or fail to translate to carry unfortunate
connotations. A couple of years ago in Japan I remember being
nonplussed when faced with a vending machine selling among other
things Pocari Sweat and Amino Calpis. I opted for the safer sounding
C.C.Lemon.
Finding a name that works in every country is never easy but China
may be the most challenging market of all for foreign brands.
In China many Western brand names are expressed in Chinese
characters (also known as sinographs). Some brands simply
translate their brand name so that it will sound the same (or as
close as possible) when pronounced. Others take the process a step
further and imbue the name with relevant connotations: BMW
translates to “precious horse,” while the Chinese name for Ikea
conveys “suitable for home.” Perhaps the most famous translation is
the one for Coca-Cola. When Coca-Cola was first sold in China local
shop keepers tried to express the name phonetically using Chinese
characters with sometimes bizarre results. Rather than suffer
transliterations like “bite the wax tadpole,” the Coca-Cola Company
identified a combination of characters which sounds similar to the
English pronunciation but also implies the brand will “permit the
mouth to be happy.”
Most brand names develop their meaning over time as the company
seeks to promote what the brand stands for and the experience of
using the brand adds a personal element to that meaning. But there
is a lot of truth in the adage that “words have meaning and names
have power.”The trouble is that a powerfully constructive name
in one context may be powerfully destructive in another. If first
impressions count, then history suggests it worthwhile to investing
to get the right name for a brand.
I
What’sina品牌?How
toNameaCompanyina
GlobalEconomy
Every parent and start-up dreads and appreciates the
challenge of naming. It’s even harder when your brand
has to travel. That which we call Coca-Cola does not,
by any other language, sound as sweet
By Nigel Hollis,
Executive Vice President and Chief Global Analyst, Millward Brown
First published in the November 20, 2012 edition of The Atlantic, www.theatlantic.com

34. By Dominic Twose,
Global Head of Knowledge Management, Millward Brown
First published in the August 28, 2012 edition of Research, www.research-live.com
Effective
In the Admap paper we also analysed the results of ads deemed
highly effective by virtue of receiving an IPA or an Effie award. The
ads scored high on all the same measures as the Lions winners, but
they also tended to fare well on branding: their creativity was linked
to the brand.
In 2011 Cannes introduced a new Creative Effectiveness category.
This year’s winner, Even Angels Will Fall, epitomised the criteria
set out here. It’s a highly engaging distinctive and memorable ad
featuring beautiful angels falling to Earth and ripping off their
haloes, having been seduced by a young man wearing Axe Excite
deodorant.
Last year’s Grand Prix winner was a campaign for Walkers Crisps
that showed the excitement generated when a host of celebrities,
including the racing driver Jenson Button and the actress Pamela
Anderson, visited the small English town of Sandwich - the message
being, a bag of Walkers crisps has the same effect on your lunchtime
sandwich. The ad was also judged a winner by Link, Millward
Brown’s pre-testing system. It grabbed attention and was clearly
memorable and well branded. Sales increased 26% and endorsement
of the statement that Walkers “makes my lunch more enjoyable” rose
from 21% to 39% over the course of the campaign.
Likeable
Imaginative and amusing associations can help people remember
things, from grocery lists to random strings of numbers. Advertising
also creates associations, linking brands with motivating ideas
and concepts - though the means used are usually more subtle and
sophisticated than the simple mnemonic techniques described here.
The world’s most creative ads are celebrated annually at the Cannes
Lions International Festival of Creativity. The question of how
to evaluate creativity is an important issue for those of us in the
advertising industry. Millward Brown’s study of Cannes Lions award
winners (published in Admap in November 2011) found that winning
ads scored high on enjoyment, involvement, positive emotions and
- crucially - being different from other ads, confirming the notion
that there are no patterns, no rules to producing highly creative
advertising. The reality is that the most successful ads are those
that are unlike any other. They are “creative” in that they transcend
traditional ideas to create meaningful new ones.
Influential
In 2007, at the behest of Washington Post journalist Gene
Weingarten, the violinist Joshua Bell entered a Metro station in
Washington, DC. Dressed casually, he stood against a wall, took out
his Stradivarius and began to play. The “concert” was videotaped
with a hidden camera. The film showed that during the time Bell was
playing 1,097 people passed by but only five slowed down to listen,
and he collected just $32.17. Just three days earlier, listeners had
filled Symphony Hall in Boston to hear him play. Good seats went for
$100 or more. What was the difference?
Context. People expect to hear great music in a famous concert
hall, but not in an underground station, and so they are unlikely
to recognise it when they do. The way experiences are framed can
fundamentally affect the way they are perceived.
Anyone who has been involved in product testing will recognise
this. A product that produces average results when tested blind
might fare substantially better when branded. Framing matters, and
vivid advertising memories (maybe through associating particular
claims or specific emotions with a brand) can colour perceptions of
the brand itself and powerfully enhance perceptions of the product
experience.
Intriguing
Early in the twentieth century, a store owner in New York filled
a goldfish bowl with water and placed it alongside a sign that
read “Invisible fish from South America”. Before long a crowd had
gathered, and the police had to be called to clear the sidewalk of
people trying to see the invisible fish. Such displays have been used
many times since to generate curiosity in storefronts.
The same type of curiosity can be generated by interesting,
memorable advertising associations. Such curiosity may lead
someone to try a brand, especially if it is a low-risk, low-cost
purchase. At the very least, it will encourage them to find out more
about a product, particularly if it’s a major purchase like a car.
Memorable
Simonides of Ceos , an Ancient Greek poet, is credited with
developing a system of mnemonics called the ‘memory palace’,
whereby you associate information you need to remember with
locations on a given route. The story goes that he was attending a
banquet when he heard that two young men were waiting outside to
see him. As he left the dining hall, it collapsed behind him. During
the excavation of the rubble, Simonides was able to identify each
guest, crushed beyond recognition, by recalling their positions at the
table.
Successful mnemonic systems depend on creativity. The more
creative and dramatic the images you form to associate with
information, the more vivid your memories will be. Memory coach
Harry Lorayne, who did a lot to popularise mnemonics, suggests
that the links should be ridiculous or illogical, out of proportion,
exaggerated or in motion.
Ordinary people use mnemonic systems all the time, whether they
realise it or not - such as when they recall an advertising jingle.
Our analysis shows that when advertising is exciting, intriguing,
funny, sexy, surprising, thought-provoking, different or eye-catching,
consumers are left with associations planted so deeply they simply
can’t forget them.
Attention-grabbing
A few years ago I had an interesting experience in a cinema. I’d
arrived early to get my seat, but the cinema was already nearly
full. People were talking and laughing through the ads, waiting for
the film to begin. Then another ad started. This one featured two
children sitting side by side facing the camera. A lively electro-pop
tune kicked in and the children began moving their eyebrows in
rhythm to the music. A hush fell over the room as everyone watched
the facial gymnastics on the screen.
That ad for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is a good example of one of the
benefits of creativity in advertising: unique ideas grab attention.
People are bombarded by ads every day, but they mentally screen
most of them out, either actively or passively. When people are not
interested in hearing about brands - which is, admittedly, most
of the time - they’re not interested in looking at ads either. But
creativity can help an ad circumvent the normal filtering process.
Creativity can make people pay attention.
The insurance brand targeted at women, Sheila’s Wheels, invested
30% of its TV budget into sponsoring drama when it launched in
the UK in 2005. This was considered innovative at a time when most
insurance brands focused almost exclusively on TV spot advertising.
The risk paid off and Sheila’s Wheels reached an awareness level of
75% in just three months, surpassing sales targets by 65% within the
first year.
For most brands today, the 20% of innovation is usually around
social media. Marketers have signed up to the benefit of enabling
interaction with consumers, but they still raise questions about
return on investment (ROI) and are learning how to create and
deliver campaigns that are truly social by design.
The remaining 10% of channel investment is for experimentation
with new and emerging unknown channels. Although it is relatively
high risk, brands should remain in line with their core brand and
campaign objectives; iPhone apps and Pinterest pages are right for
some brands, but not all.
TheJoyof
Six

35. NAVIGATING
THENEWPATH
TOPURCHASE

36. Today, the consumer path to purchase is as complex as ever. Shifting
consumer attitudes and multiple connected devices create a chaotic
reality. The traditional purchase funnel diagram, one which any
marketer could sketch from memory, is officially dead. The singular,
orderly sequence of purchase stages has been scrambled, and
marketers need to conform. In today’s world, where consumers have
access to constant information through computers, smart phones
and tablets, each person’s path to purchase is complex and unique.
Fragmented audiences, distracted consumers and multiple devices
fuel different paths. The explosion of digital channels, the always-
on media ecosystem, and the emergence of increasingly discerning
consumers challenge even the savviest of digital marketers.
Marketers are designing a path to purchase strategy based on an
outdated model, and there is no objective way to benchmark or
measure success in a rapidly evolving digital marketplace.
For consumers, there are unlimited opportunities to get distracted
throughout the shopping process. Consumers can get to the brink
of a purchase and then regress back to researching and browsing—
because it’s easy to do. Whether on their desktop, tablet or
smartphone, shoppers are just one click away from embarking on
a ride far away from their original intent. The good news: A single
touchpoint can get them back.
For marketers, it’s a challenge to identify and map the ideal
shopping behavior for their brand. Each individual path is
different—the actual activities vary widely between consumers,
across multiple platforms. However, the combinations are not
infinite. It’s not just what consumers do that is important; it is also
how, when and why they do it. The timing, location, and intensity
of consumer behavior indicate levels of involvement within the
path to purchase and opportunities for marketers to engage.
Digital marketers need to take a hard look into this data trail that
consumers leave behind. Analysis of this behavior can provide
actionable insight into how consumers arrive at their purchase
decision.
As consumers use more digital platforms and channels for research
and buying, there is a need to invest, strategically and financially, in
tools and platforms that measure beyond traditional web analytics.
We need to understand engagement activity (e.g. search, review and
cross-shopping, mobile/tablet engagement) before, during, and after
the customer conversion.
The path to purchase model is shifting. Consumers are distracted,
but smarter. Marketers can be smarter too. This whitepaper gives
marketers context and insight into the evolving path to purchase
across several verticals as well as advice on building a strategy to
better shape their marketing efforts.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

37. FLAT PANEL TV SHOPPERS
When shopping for a new Flat Panel TV (FPTV), consumers are
looking to upgrade their device, improve their home viewing
situation, purchase an FPTV for a new room or home or simply
replace a broken television. This data is important—the “why”
consumers are shopping for FPTVs helps us determine “what”
consumers are doing along their path to purchase.
HOW DO FPTV CONSUMERS SHOP?
• When purchasing a new FPTV, the desire to upgrade is the
strongest motivator.
• Shopping for a FPTV typically takes 11 weeks, one of the longest
processes analyzed.
• Consumers primarily conduct their TV research online, but still
visit a physical retail location to purchase.
The FPTV consumers’ path to purchase process is lengthy, typically
occurring over 11 weeks. The first shopping phase occurs in the
first four weeks while consumers are researching brands and
determining their price range. Phase two is in the middle four weeks,
when they move further down the path and determine which brands
and models are the best fit. In the final three weeks, shoppers are
compiling their research and have narrowed down brands, models
and the best deals.
Our path to purchase research has demonstrated that most FPTV
shoppers have a tendency to research online and to purchase offline,
making both digital and physical channels important pillars of any
marketing strategy. The brick-and-mortar retail location is still the
most popular place to actually make a purchase, but only one third
of shoppers will use only a physical retail location for research.
Even during traditionally busy seasons—holidays when online
traffic increases by up to three times—online purchase rates stay the
same, underscoring the role of retail stores in the purchase.
Although our research shows that most consumers are buying
in physical retail locations, it’s still critical to allocate resources
toward digital efforts, as online experiences help build brand
preference and drive shoppers to the store.
HOW CAN MARKETERS REACH FPTV SHOPPERS?
• Maximize search performance since FPTV shopping starts online.
• Enhance web design and improve user experience because
manufacturers’ websites are one of the last online touchpoints
before a consumer visits a retail location.
• Streamline the physical retail shopping experience. Interaction
with sales representatives and product displays are the two most
influential touchpoints when shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.
Search engine optimization (SEO) should drive consumers to the
brand website as early in the process as possible - this is the first
opportunity brands have to engage their audience. Online search
will drive top-of-funnel activity, improve brand credibility, and
increase the overall sales pipeline.
Manufacturer websites are a key consumer touchpoint in the
path to purchase. If consumers prematurely leave the brand site,
there is a lost opportunity to direct them to a physical location
to buy electronics. Knowing this, brand marketers need to make
improvements in the website experience to increase the number of
leads walking into a retail location with purchase intent.
Once qualified foot traffic is sent to retail locations, the work is
not over for marketers. Offline budget needs to be dedicated to
ensure that the in-store experience and materials have the same
quality treatment and information as all the other brand materials
consumers are exposed to during the shopping process. At the in-
store level, investments should be made to train sales personnel on
product features and other ways to improve the customer experience
during the middle-to-late stages of the shopping process. For
lesser-known brands, there is an opportunity here to convert FPTV
shoppers. While major brands like Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and LG
have traction in the beginning of the shopping process due to better
unaided awareness, smaller brands can gain popularity toward the
end as consumers understand product specifications better.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

38. CONSUMER SHOPPING PATHS
The automotive consumer journey is one of the most complex of all
industries. Although consumers buy vehicles at dealerships, most of
the decision-making process and influential touchpoints are online.
How do auto consumers shop?
85 to 90 percent of auto shoppers conduct online research. The
typical car shopper begins the process on a search engine or review
site and ends at the brand’s domain, before heading to a dealership.
The online research process lasts, on average, four months, with
an uptick in activity in the last month. More activity at the end
suggests the traditional purchase funnel is upside-down.
Auto shoppers’ behavior is very diverse, but can be grouped into
three distinct online shopper paths, culminating in an “expression
of interest” for one or more models.
Purchasing a new automobile is a very big decision, and for some
consumers, the most costly purchase they will make. There are a
myriad of digital touchpoints, from manufacturers’ sites, to third-
party sites, to review sites, to enthusiast sites, and even general
information sites that have auto sections.
Even though we know that every consumer’s path is unique, we
are able to identify three distinct paths based on some common
characteristics:
High Category Involvement: These consumer paths are
characterized by a heavy use of auto review sites, search, and
competitive brand sites, before reaching the “expression of interest”
phase.
Brand Pre-disposition: This path category typically begins
with visits to auto review sites and search engines, but quickly
progresses to expression of interest.
High Social Network Involvement: Consumers on this path category
rely more on manufacturers’ social media brand pages.
The first path typically begins with visits to auto review sites or
with queries on search engines, which ultimately lands consumers/
shoppers on automotive brand sites. The process repeats several
times during the journey, with increasing visitation to the brand site
in the last month before purchase.
The second path is primarily composed of consumers predisposed
to a specific brand—they start with search and reviews, but quickly
narrow down to specific manufacturer pages. This path is distinctly
different than the third path, which is characterized by a stronger
reliance on visits to social media brand pages; paths one and two
have a much lower use of automotive social media.
While each is distinct, there are some common patterns across each
path. For example, more than half of the shoppers start the process
on a search engine. Two thirds of auto consumers that demonstrate
intent to purchase begin searching four months prior to purchase,
with a noticeable uptick in action in the final month. By the end of
the process, 86 percent of those showing signs of purchase engage
with a manufacturer’s site, while only 13 percent start there; the 86
percent is good news for automakers and the 13 percent means there
are a lot of potential disruptions along the path to purchase.
Given the heritage of many automotive brands, brand association
is often a powerful influence, and that association can be expressed
in multiple and, sometimes, unexpected ways. One brand’s effort
to drive consumers exclusively to its YouTube channel resulted
in the brand’s homepage getting a wealth of purchase-intending
traffic. Social networking, music, and video sites are highly visited
categories for multiple auto segments, but a key question is whether
they create brand-new relationships or reinforce existing ones.
Shoppers kick off the auto research process in several ways: search,
social media, and independent reviews. Knowing where and when
consumers use them is crucial because those touchpoints influence
which brands consumers investigate further.
How can marketers reach auto consumers?
Understand where and how consumers research vehicles—yours and
rivals’—with a focus on the most likely inflection points (e.g. places
you are most likely to lock down or lose customers, and places where
you have the best opportunity to conquest rivals’ shoppers).
Optimize keyword investments to ensure you’re investing in the
terms and techniques most likely to drive consumers your way.
Search is a strong driver of purchase intent and can aid brand
credibility.
Quantify how and when consumers use auto review sites, then
determine whether deeper partnership relationships with those
entities will help drive traffic. The majority of brand site traffic
comes from review sites.
Find the right balance of keyword activity (including competitive
keywords), have a structured presence on social media channels
(proven to generate consumer interest and increase automotive
research activity) and monitor review sites (shown to engage the
audience and maintain traffic flow to conversion).
It’s imperative that automotive brand websites are optimized to
encourage quick action in driving a buy, or, at least, starting a dialog
between dealers and consumers. Ensure your brand site is optimized
for a consumer experience based on the research process up until
that point. Find the right balance between site flash and allure vs.
ease of use. Make sure that consumers who are coming into the
brand site (via search or review sites) land on the appropriate page.
Your website is often the last chance to interact with consumers,
and you need to keep them from defecting to ensure that they head
to your dealers.
Consumers buy new vehicles at dealerships, but the research
process is predominantly online, with 85-90 percent of auto
consumers conducting online research. Automotive buyers don’t
purchase on brand homepages, but those sites are among the last
digital opportunities to influence consumers and encourage them to
take the next step and visit a dealer. Engineer your consumers’ paths
so what they learn along the way is consistent with what they find in
the dealership.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

39. HOTEL BOOKERS
The online travel marketplace is large and dynamic because
consumers spend more money online for travel than any other
industry.
HOW DO HOTEL BOOKERS SHOP?
• An average hotel booker visits 12 travel sites before booking
online.
• The order, time, and intensity in which consumers visit travel sites
vary greatly.
• There are shared shopping characteristics between different
categories of bookers (e.g. when initial research starts), but the
nuances within those groups are different.
Our study of traveler behavior found the path to purchase to be
comprised of various “stand alone” steps. This reflects that travel
often requires distinct elements, such as booking a flight, then
selecting a hotel near the chosen airport, then renting a car near the
airport and/or hotel. Marketers need to recognize that these distinct
points of influence are all intertwined, and streamlining this process
will drive travel bookings and set the stage for partnerships
and conquesting.
We found that the frequency and duration of research changes based
on where consumers are in the shopping process, dictating that
the marketing approach be nonlinear. Hotel bookers visit a quarter
of their pre-purchase travel sites on the same day they book. OTAs
(online travel agencies) are the most visited category among hotel
bookers, and the average hotel shopper makes 12 visits to OTAs in
the same month as booking. More than half of these visits occur
during the week of booking and even more occur within the last 48
hours of booking.
Flight research paired with airline site visits is one of the few
common behavior traits across hotel bookers’ paths. While the
instances of flight research adds some structure to understanding
the path, the diverse nature of travel sites adds to the complexity.
For example, consumers can book hotels on supplier sites (sites
operated by the brands themselves). They can also book hotels on
OTAs, and once they’re on an OTA, they might also buy a flight and
rental car. At the same time, hotel sites often allow consumers to
book flights, and airline sites often allow consumers to book hotels.
Understanding the optimal places to influence behavior and drive
revenue (e.g. search, flight, OTA/hotel, supplier, etc.) enables brands
to attract qualified consumers.
HOW CAN MARKETERS REACH HOTEL SHOPPERS AND BOOKERS?
• Prioritize revenue by reinforcing behavior among consumers
already leaning your way, by minimizing conquesting of your
consumers by rivals, and by identifying your most valuable lost
bookers.
• Determine how site tools influence booking choices and how they
can be used to measure pre-booking audience quality.
• Compare the return on investment (ROI) of using a full path
approach vs. a singular point approach to target specific
audiences.
Path to purchase knowledge incorporates how consumers get to
your site and how many of them visit your site but book somewhere
else. The latter is called “lost bookings” and is a key element in
understanding how to use consumer behavior to unlock low hanging
revenue. For example, a hotel can assign a value to adding OTA-style
search capability to its site, based on the likelihood of increased
conversion by reducing lost bookings.
Understanding which tools correlate with travel booking decisions
on your site and rival sites can help inform site redesign strategies,
such as adjusting site landing pages based on the combination of
traffic source and tool use. For example, knowing if consumers are
more influenced by search than OTAs could inform landing page
tactics from paid search results and advertisements. If the biggest
break in the path for a given hotel is the moment after choosing a
flight, that hotelier could consider a partnership with an airline with
which its lost bookers are already engaged.
Companies have the option for a broader effort designed to influence
many elements of travel shopping or a more focused approach
with rich attention on just one element. Both can influence revenue
through the new, evolved path, but need to be cost-effective; the
right choice depends on where the biggest loss of consumers is
today.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

40. ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR SHOPPERS
There are several key elements that influence the athletic footwear
path to purchase: online retailers, brand properties, consumer
reviews, the physical store experience, and online search.
HOW DO ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR CONSUMERS SHOP?
• Athletic footwear shoppers consult online resources for product
and seller information. One in three prefers purchasing online
rather than in a traditional store.
• Along the path to purchase, shoppers use brand websites for
research, but these sites are typically not a purchase destination.
• Shoppers choose quickly and don’t spend much time researching.
The purchase window for athletic footwear is narrow.
Starting with the online experience, we have found that consumers
primarily discover new products through site channels (e.g. retailers
or online pure plays), consumer reviews, and fitness research
websites. The path to purchase is notably short as online athletic
shoe shoppers are likely to know exactly what brands and/or
products they are interested in from the start.
On average, purchasers spend six minutes shopping for athletic
footwear, significantly less time compared to other categories. They
spend little actual time “researching,” opting instead to search for
the best deal.
Not surprisingly, a lot of sales are shifting online; in fact, nearly one
in three consumers favor purchasing athletic footwear online versus
in-store. However, the offline experience is also still relevant: nine
in 10 consumers who opt to purchase in-store do so primarily to try
the footwear on and secondarily, to get the shoe immediately and
avoid shipping costs. Of those who do buy online, 20 percent of these
consumers try the footwear on in a store before going online to make
the purchase, highlighting the role of the offline channel even in an
online transaction.
Finally, search is a significant driver of athletic footwear sales and
improves brand consideration. Each month, athletic footwear sites
receive 16.5 million search referrals, of which online pure plays and
department stores capture the largest shares. Manufacturers garner
the smallest share of athletic footwear searches, yet have the highest
share of paid search. Under Armour, Converse, and Nike, the top
three brands driving traffic through branded keywords, generate a
substantial portion of those clickthroughs with paid search.
Our recommendations for the retail industry revolve around
understanding and adapting to the realities of the new path to
purchase rather than trying to change it. Looking across the online
ecosystem, shoppers who visit a manufacturer’s website are a
temporarily captive audience, but eventually move on.
HOW CAN MARKETERS REACH RETAIL CONSUMERS?
• Engage and convert. With a short shopping process, all
touchpoints need to quickly encourage a transaction.
• Overcome the consumer obstacles to purchasing online. If you
can’t offer free shipping, for example, consider offering additional
value like a quality guarantee.
• Build experiences on brand and retail sites that link initial
research to shopping transactions.
The brand website experience can be attention-grabbing, but
many consumers travel elsewhere to complete their purchase,
influenced by price and convenience. The opportunity lies in how
manufacturers and retailers can partner to best influence these in-
market consumers.
For brands, one way to alleviate consumer hesitancy when shopping
directly on a manufacturer site is to promote free shipping and a
no-risk, no-hassle return policy. If manufacturers are unable to offer
free shipping or flexible returns, there are additional ways to add
value and enhance the experience of purchasing on the brand site.
The ability to speak with a specialist, lifetime quality guarantees
and interactive product viewing abilities can retain consumers and
increase purchases made through brand ecommerce efforts.
The best strategy for brands and retailers could be embracing
their roles in overcoming the obstacles to conversion. Properties
should build online experiences that link online search to brand
site visits to retail transactions. Depending on the manufacturer,
some sites are primarily a research tool that drive traffic to retailers
while others focus largely on ecommerce. Both manufacturers and
retailers benefit when they enhance their greatest areas of influence
and rely on partners to bolster the touchpoints that bring consumers
to purchase.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

41. CONSUMER SAVINGS PRODUCTS
Within the financial category, the process of product selection to
account opening is a short one, for which consumers primarily
research online, but convert offline. During the initial research
phase, online resources, such as review websites, have a larger
consumer impact compared to traditional media; 48 percent of
consumers only use online resources, and 21 percent rely on offline
tools.
HOW DO CONSUMERS SHOP FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES?
• Online banking consumers move quickly from research to
selection, in most cases conducting research online and converting
offline.
• Within the financial services category, digital impacts not only the
consumer’s path to purchase, but also their post-purchase
• service experience.
• Mobile features have a strong positive influence on consumer
preference of financial institutions.
Consumer must-haves revolve around the need to see product
information quickly, explaining why they go online. To illustrate
the speed of this selection, we found that 80 percent of customers
have decided on a brand after their first research step, even before
visiting a brand website.
In contrast to other verticals, financial services marketing success
depends on effectively servicing long term clients as much as
acquiring them. The good news for financial brands is that there is a
significant digital opportunity to engage shoppers across their full
consumer journey; customers demonstrate a need for service post-
purchase and prefer to do that online. Once a consumer establishes a
brand preference, 64 percent of consumers complete an application,
and there is a 30 percent increase in consumers engaging with the
brand online for customer service. Through all phases of the path to
purchase, even post-conversion, consumers consult search engines,
bank-owned websites, and financial product comparison/review
websites.
Our research also shows that there is a large mobile opportunity:
financial brand favorability rises when companies have a mobile app
that enables account holders to manage their money and account
on-the-go.
Across the consideration, selection, and recommendation phases of
shopping, consumers were more likely to recommend institutions
that offered a mobile app. Within the financial category, 29 percent
of consumers were more likely to consider institutions with a
mobile presence, 28 percent chose a brand with a mobile presence,
and 27 percent recommended a brand with mobile presence. For
brokerage firms, 27 percent were more likely to consider, 24 percent
chose, and 18 percent recommended. For auto insurance companies,
23 percent were more likely to consider, 21 percent chose, and 20
percent recommended. In short, mobile yields a higher impact on
consideration and retention rate. Additionally, a mobile presence
is good news for advertising efforts as mobile shoppers are most
positively impacted by ads on finance-related apps.
Financial services is a unique category in that the consumer journey
toggles between online and offline, with each phase having distinct
roles in attracting and servicing shoppers. Consumers need options,
but for brand marketers, this should not be confused with too much
available information—financial services selections have to be
clear for better prospect retention. Knowing this, making product
information quickly and clearly available on every channel is
paramount.
HOW CAN MARKETERS REACH FINANCIAL SERVICES CUSTOMERS?
• Ensure product selection and information is clear and concise on
bank-owned websites.
• Invest in third party sites to complement brand sites.
• Connect the online and offline user experience as consumers move
quickly from online research to offline conversion.
As review and comparison sites are key online research tools, they
merit a place on a bank’s homepage. We recommend incorporating
third-party financial reviews on bank websites to further contribute
to shopping quality and ease. Esurance is making transparency a
priority in their consumer experience, an example that can lead to
valuable and usable review content. Schwab and Bank of America
have also taken an approach similar to Apple, which allows
customers to make an appointment online before physically visiting
a branch location—another improvement to consumer experience
and, consequently, reviews.
The connection between online and offline is particularly clear
for opening new accounts. In fact, for every one account opened
online, we have found that eight accounts are opened at a physical
location. Knowing this about the financial path to purchase, brands
need to ensure that the transition between research and conversion
is seamless. The messaging and theme of online collateral need to
match the consumer experience when an informed prospect walks
through a bank’s door.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

42. SO...
Consumers are changing the way they research and purchase online,
and new shopping paths are emerging depending on behavior,
device, location, and intent.
Marketers have much to gain from re-evaluating existing strategies
and identifying ways to improve their brand’s bottom line. The key
to successfully decoding this new consumer behavior is pairing an
uncomplicated mindset with complex reporting abilities. In adapting
to this new path to purchase reality, the best thing marketers can
do is make sure their strategy does not depend on a linear sequence
of events. When each independent step along the path is improved,
the end result will be more purchases, regardless of how consumers
got there. We believe the fundamental solution lies inaccepting, then
successfully navigating, this new path to purchase.
Digital Touchpoints™, is Compete’s new solution that provides
insights on actual consumer interactions, enabling our clients to
make the most effective marketing decisions. A better understanding
of the sequence of shopping events equips companies to deliver the
correct marketing message at the right place and at the right time
during the shopping process.
To do this, we measure the ways consumers interact with shopping
touchpoints in three ways:
The Engagement Index™ represents the extent of actual shopper
engagement with touchpoints. This takes into account the percent
of total shoppers interacting with the specific touchpoint, and the
intensity of those interactions, including time and number of repeat
visits.
The Influence Index™ represents the probability of one touchpoint
interaction influencing a shopper’s final action.
The Opportunity Index™ shows the competitive view of touchpoint
interactions (e.g. which brands are getting better or worse traction
with consumers at each given touchpoint).
The goal of this report is to enable marketers to make strategic
shifts in how they approach the new fluid path to purchase, to
quantify and qualify consumer behavior, and to take action.
The right tools lead to actionable insights and informed digital
marketing decisions that drive brand, market share, and ROI.
NAVIGATINGTHENEWPATHTOPURCHASE

43. DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

44. The Facebook newsfeeds we will see at the end of next year will
look very different from the ones we see now. We will see the rise
of bigger, bolder, more interactive – and intrusive – Facebook
advertisements in 2013.
It was only a matter of time before Facebook sought to monetize and
justify its massive valuation. The drive for effective and revenue-
generating advertising will draw on its powerful social ecosystem,
pushing the creative formats and placements far away from the ads
we see today.
Brands will be permitted to be more visible on members’ newsfeeds,
growing the use of sponsored stories and video ads (which will
become highlighted in users’ feeds). Advertisers will also be
prominent across more of the landing page – expandable and richer
formats will be prevalent by the end of the year. With these new
opportunities will come increased responsibility for advertisers to
deliver quality content that enhances the user experience rather
than invades the platform.
Facebook will morph from a relatively private social space to a
business entity driven by the bottom line. Brands will need to tread
carefully as they explore these new opportunities. Some users will
tolerate prominent advertising in return for free access to their
friends and social connections, but others may balk at increased
commercialization. Seeing their personal data sold for targeted
advertising may cause resentment, unless brands deliver engaging
content that is appropriate for this personal space.
As brands start to invest higher CPMs in more impactful ad units,
it will become increasingly important to optimize visuals and
messaging. Some of this will be measured in real-time, and copy-
testing of Facebook ads will also start to be more widely employed.
By the end of 2013 we will better understand users’ reactions to
Facebook advertising, and we will know which formats successfully
deliver brand impact without alienating users.
By Martin Ash,
Account Manager, Media and Digital, Millward Brown
FACEBOOK’S MONETIZATION
DRIVE WILL PROVIDE NEW,
RICHER ADVERTISING
OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRANDS
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

45. ANALYSIS
The current state of social media data collectio is pretty much ‘grab
and go.’ Most social listening platforms scrape every piece of social
data they can find. Certainly this can be useful for monitoring real-
time updates on breaking news and crises.But should all of the
social universe be eligible for brand measurement?
Privacy settings make it difficult to know how much of the total
has been captured – or not. And while traditional research data
undergoes a rigorous scrubbing process to eliminate trivial or
unreliable data, there is no such quality standard in social media.
Our tests show that across over 30 million conversations, as little as
40 percent of the total volume of brand conversations may consist
of actual mentions of the brand by humans. This affects every
commonly used metric from buzz to sentiment to key themes – it
even affects calculations of influence, since brands may be including
spambots when assessing their audience’s influence.
As brands give more weight to social data in making business
decisions, they will also demand greater transparency in the
collection of data and greater quality in the insights. Rather than
just being alerted of a crisis, marketers need to understand the
longer-term implications, and the underlying factors driving that
outcome. This can only be achieved when starting with a robust
dataset. The current generation of technology can help aggregate the
data, but it is not yet effective at assessing more subjective aspects,
like sentiment.
Social data can start to inform business decisions more broadly
across organizations, but it’s only meaningful if it’s cleaned,
designed and analyzed in a way that makes it actionable and
comparable to other measures. Human discretion is still needed to
evaluate the source, quality, and value of results. To find true insight
in social data, brands will require a new iteration of social listening
that is less focused on fast feedback, and more on reliable research.
By Anne Czernek,
Senior Research Analyst, Emerging Media Lab, Millward Brown Digital
SOCIAL MEDIA LISTENING
EVOLVES FROM MONITORING
TO INSIGHT
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

46. Picture this... you walk into a room and the ambience instantly
adapts to your personal preferences—the lighting dims, jazz music
begins to play, and pictures of your favorite beach are projected onto
the walls.
You set your smartphone down on the desk, and all your information
(files, pictures, songs, movies, etc.) are at your fingertips; no more
laptop bags, flash drives, or papers—everything is just there. With
increased power and capabilities, our mobile devices become the
remote controls of our lives, allowing not only active control of
electronics, but seamless integration of the world around us.
While the milieu described above may be a few years off, we can
already see the evolution of mobile in the way we live. The new
functionality of our ‘mobile remotes’ utilizes advanced technology
to simplify our lives. Anything that needs a processor to operate
can use a smartphone as the brain. Brands need to start developing
communication plans that adapt to this new world.
Marketers must learn to interact with consumers via these ‘mobile
remotes.’ Content and advertising must stem from mobile but
become adaptable to multiple screens and scenarios. With mobile
as the hub, information gathering becomes more centralized as
consumers trade personal information for convenience and access
to events, offers and premium content. We see this with ‘check-
ins’ now, but these will expand to more widespread, dynamic and
seamless use.
Marketers need to create content that is flexible and smart so that
it not only gives information, but receives it as well, and adapts in
real-time to become more relevant and appropriate. The information
that will be available on our ‘mobile remotes’ facilitates greater
possibilities for advanced targeting and for interactive creative
executions.
By Drew Myers,
Senior Business Analyst, Millward Brown
EMERGENCE OF ‘MOBILE
REMOTES’ MAKE IT A
CENTRAL PILLAR OF SMART
COMMUNICATION PLANS
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

47. One of the great things about the Internet is that you can access all
your favorite content at the touch of a button and all for free, right?
Not for much longer. In 2013 we will see an increase in the amount
of content shifting away from ad-supported business models to pay-
per-view or subscription-based models.
Driving the change is the rapid decline in audiences for the big
players of traditional media. Newspaper and magazine circulation is
in decline and TV audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented,
due to the growth of alternative television services as well as online
and mobile video consumption.
While many of these players have established solid online
properties, they have generally been seen as an extension of their
traditional audience and are based around a free access, ad-
supported business model. To sustain high-quality content, they
will need to use some form of subscription-based access to ensure
delivery of specialized and exclusive content. The Wall Street
Journal led the way as far back as 1997, but ever more established
content sites will move towards paywalls and subscription models.
What does this mean for brands and marketers?
More fragmentation – with consumers now having to pay, you can
expect audience sizes for premium content sites to fall as consumers
look for alternative free content or go without.
Less clutter, tighter targeting but higher CPMs – with a subscription
audience, the reliance on ad revenue by content providers will
decline. They will instead focus more on quality and an improved
user experience to drive subscribers. The result will be less
advertising space, but greater audience targeting will drive-up
demand and also prices. Brands will need to decide if the ‘premium
context’ is worth the price of the premium CPM. There may be an
opportunity for fast-moving brands to subsidize content to keep
parts of it free.
By Mark Henning,
Director, Millward Brown
THE GREAT PAYWALL MAKES
FOR A SCARCITY OF PREMIUM
EYEBALLS
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

48. Omnichannel marketing is about being present or available across
the consumer’s behavioral path: each potential contact point
integrated with all others. The concept started in the retail sector
where this behavioral path is easily tracked across online, offline
and mobile touchpoints (both marketing and transactional).
The digital arena will represent the first stage of more brands
adopting an omnichannel mindset, as social and mobile data
sources are blended with offline brand experiences. Customer data
will be key to these efforts as big data moves from a passive pool
of potential insights, into an active mechanism for deepening the
meaning behind each individual interaction.
This shift in technological connectivity offers marketers an
opportunity to sew their conversations with consumers together into
a coherent story. It’s not about bombarding people with marketing
noise, but rather integrating previous interactions to ensure greater
relevance when attention is being paid to a brand’s message.
Treading the line between privacy fears and consumer empowerment
is going to be a key determinant of success.
In 2013 the green shoots of omnichannel strategies will involve
companies turning existing datasets into active targeting engines.
A retail brand might look to integrate loyalty data with social
applications to deliver relevant offers or messages to consumers
when they’re in or around store locations. As mobile ad-serving
platforms mature, this will transition from social apps into ads
running across any mobile content. As well as receiving location
data, mobiles have the potential to inform nearby digital screens –
Minority Report-style tailored out of home ad content may not be so
far away.
The implication for marketers is to start building the infrastructure
to deliver an integrated experience in the omnichannel world
or face the prospect of being left behind. The risk is that your
competitors start to have meaningful ongoing dialogues while you
shout disjointed slogans at consumers. The technical requirement
is to capture meaningful moments of engagement so they can be
referenced and built on during subsequent interactions.
By Rob Valsler,
Regional Director, Millward Brown
OMNICHANNEL MARKETING
HELPS BRANDS BUILD ON
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS OF
ENGAGEMENT
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

49. Reports of the death of TV have been greatly exaggerated. Contrary
to predictions that the digital age would drag people away from
TV, we are watching more TV than ever. Rather than being eroded,
people’s viewing experience is being enriched by social networks
and dedicated social TV apps like Zeebox.
Increasingly, the assumption that a laptop, and a tablet or mobile
are the ‘second’ and ‘third’ screens will dissipate. It will not be
enough to simply broadcast a hashtag and flag a few tweets on
the television screen. Telling stories through multiple screens
(and elsewhere) will begin to supplant the notion of broadcasting
something on the first screen, and people reacting and responding to
it on disconnected supplementary screens.
An audience will be able to immerse themselves in content to an
extent that suits them. The majority will continue to consume most
TV passively, but those more invested in a particular program will
be able to access and interact with richer story elements during and
between episodes. Unique story elements in different channels will
be integrated with audience responses and reactions to become part
of a single narrative, which permeates more deeply into people’s
lives.
These interactive trans-media stories will be tailored to the specific
program audience; designed to improve with each episode and series
as the barriers between broadcaster and audience are reduced.
For brand owners, especially those sponsoring a series or intending
to regularly place ads around it, this creates both opportunity and
challenge. Getting it right will mean adapting to this narrative
approach and interweaving your brand’s story across screens,
tailoring it appropriately to those most involved in the content.
Brands that fail to ‘join-the-dots’ between screens will fail to
capitalize on a more engaged audience. Worse still, those that
interrupt or disrupt the story by muscling in without subtlety will
antagonize those they most want to impress.
By Andrew Jerina,
Director - Global Innovations, Millward Brown
SOCIAL TV GROWS UP: BECOMES
PART OF THE NARRATIVE RATHER
THAN A CONVERSATION ABOUT
THE NARRATIVE
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

50. TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
APP
APP
APP
The Internet. Always on connections. Cloud computing. These
terms are ubiquitous in the modern world and they are becoming
increasingly common in Africa too. With almost a 3,000 percent
increase in Internet access on the African continent in the last 10
years, and ever more undersea cables each year, this growth is set to
continue unabated. What makes Africa’s growth unique is that the
majority of this increased bandwidth is likely to be used on mobile
devices (since the number of PCs per 1,000 people is still extremely
low) with almost 1 billion mobile phone users in the continent by
2015. Hence Africa will epitomize the post-PC era with primarily
mobile-based Internet traffic.
African marketers will be working hard to establish the best
approaches to mobile advertising. The mix of smartphones and
feature phones in the market make implementation challenging, as
many African users have limited functionality on their device. Thus,
brands should begin with text-based search ads, SMS advertising
and mobi-optimized sites. In time, this will give way to screen
takeovers, location-based advertising, apps and augmented reality.
Dependent on the target audience, most marketers will need to take
a two-pronged approach, developing mobile ad strategies for both
basic phones and the fast-growing smartphone audience.
Our recent AdReaction study showed that mobile marketing
favorability is higher in Africa than anywhere else in the world.
Building on this, some brands have already made mobile the
centerpiece of their multi-media campaigns: Carling Black Label
in South Africa achieved over 10 million mobile votes in its recent
Be The Coach football campaign, and many other brands will be
seeking to follow in its footsteps. Online advertising be damned; the
future (for Africa at least) is mobile!
By Jarrod Payne,
Associate Account Director, Millward Brown
MOBILE ADVERTISING
IN AFRICA TACKLES THE
SMARTPHONE DIVIDE
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

51. It is no longer up for discussion. Advertisers have now moved
beyond the click and require insight into the brand impact of
their online activity alongside their click data. In 2012, we saw
the introduction of real-time branding optimization, allowing
advertisers to tweak campaigns on the fly, up-weighting successful
campaign elements and down-weighting low performers. In 2013,
this real-time planning and reallocation will go mainstream, moving
from a ‘nice to have’ to an essential feature of digital campaign
delivery and evaluation.
We are seeing growing demand for actionable in-campaign insight
and we are also seeing advertisers reap the rewards. Brand.net
measured the effectiveness of its online campaign against key brand
metrics in real-time through an online dashboard. It was able to
monitor and adjust creative types and frequency levels to optimize
the campaign while it was live. As a result, the campaign performed
within the top one percent of all online campaigns measured in
the retail category. To achieve similar success more consistently,
industry players will have to learn to collaborate and not just co-
exist:
• Research and media agencies will be required to work more
closely than ever before, integrating behavioral and attitudinal
data to deliver optimizations that maximize brand impact while
also delivering cost efficient clicks.
• Creative agencies will be required to respond more quickly to
these insights by reworking inefficient creative on the fly.
• Media agencies will need to find new ways to leverage
relationships with publishers so that in-market observations
can become in-market optimizations. For those agencies in the
business of maximising the return on their clients’ online ad
spend, 2013 promises to be a year of exciting collaboration.
By Guy Turton,
Media Solutions Manager, Millward Brown
GREATER COLLABORATION
NEEDED TO MAKE THE MOST
OFREAL-TIME OPTIMIZATION
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013
32%
19%
23%
26%

52. As online media budgets grow, there is an ever-increasing appetite
for advertisers to understand how well their online campaigns
deliver against objectives. To maximize results, media agencies will
need to pay close attention to the growing pool of research which
indicates that different online formats deliver different results.
• If driving brand awareness is the objective, evidence suggests
billboards and wallpapers should feature heavily on a plan, rather
than standard skyscrapers and leaderboards.
• By contrast, if your objective is to drive preference, wallpapers can
have a negative impact. While wallpapers put your brand center
stage, bombarding your audience with such an intrusive format
can understandably become irritating.
• Newer and larger formats are outperforming standard formats in
delivering against key brand metrics, but at what cost? Balancing
higher costs with achievement against objectives is a talent that
media agencies will increasingly be expected to master.
Importantly, although some general rules are emerging, these do
not always apply. Macro factors such as industry and brand status
will play a role, but media planners will also need to consider micro
factors such as creative strength, web site context and frequency
effects. There will be no standard template for campaign planning
against a specific objective. An awareness campaign which just
employs billboards and wallpapers will likely drive awareness, but
the potential negative repercussions on other brand metrics will
need to be considered.
We will see even more innovative and strategic online planning
in 2013, as advertisers strive for a deeper understanding of how
format impacts brand building. In-context eye tracking of digital
ads will help more brands identify the best formats for a particular
campaign message and visual, and media buyers will compare
effectiveness learning with format CPMs to identify value in the
marketplace.
By Amanda Teefey-Lee,
Senior Account Researcher, Millward Brown
BETTER ALIGNMENT OF
ONLINE DISPLAY FORMATS
WITH OBJECTIVES
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

53. Consumption patterns show that more time is already spent in
mobile apps than browsing the web. Future in-app advertising
spend will be driven by far greater use of rich media. Rich media
ads such as Apple’s iAd, other expandable/interactive formats, and
even mobile video will draw consumers into highly engaging brand
experiences. They will also give brands the opportunity to adapt
advertising to meet their business needs.
For example, a hotel brand can offer a click-to-call option to allow
calling directly from the ad to make a reservation. An auto brand can
add a map to help customers find the closest dealership. And a retail
brand can even offer the chance to make a purchase directly from
the retail site, by integrating that seamlessly within an expanding
ad unit. Our recent AdReaction study showed that smartphone and
tablet users are looking for brands that engage rather than intrude
via their mobile device, and offer something in exchange for their
attention. In-app advertising offers great opportunities for brands to
engage consumers in actions that are repeatable and meaningful, so
we expect a continued surge in rewards-based advertising activity
in 2013.
While some brands will reward via simple in-app discounts and
coupons, branded content may offer even more brand building
potential. For example, mobile gamers may be rewarded with in-
game currency for using a brand’s product. A beverage brand may
sponsor bonus points when players reach a certain game level. Even
more innovatively, brands will seek to design this engagement
to communicate specific messages as we saw in Honda’s recent
collaboration with Zynga’s Words With Friends where players were
rewarded for using Honda-related words. Such approaches should
be able to increase brand awareness, favorability and perceptions,
and are therefore likely to be adopted more widely.
By Jenn Okula,
Senior Vice President, Millward Brown Digital
MORE MEANINGFUL MOBILE
ENGAGEMENT VIA APPS AND
ACTIONS
DIGITAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS
2013

54. LONG-TERM EFFECTS, WHEN MEASURED, ARE SIGNIFICANT
Over the past twenty years, many techniques have been used to examine
and quantify the impact of advertising on sales, and while almost all of
these analyses find that the short-term effect of advertising is limited
and often unprofitable, there is substantial evidence that when brands
stop advertising, sales and margin tend to decline. Through our own
analyses of short- and long-term effects, we have found that the long-
term return on advertising is on average two or three times greater than
the short-term return. However, this ratio is highly variable, and much
stronger long-term effects are often seen.
In an analysis of 94 ads, we found 11 that showed no long-term effect
(12% of the total number). However, for 20 percent of the remaining
ads—all of which showed some long-term effect—the long-term effect
was at least five times greater than the short-term impact.
In one campaign for a major multinational client, the longer-term return
per GRP from the brand’s advertising was calculated to be almost six
times the short-term return. Had we only looked at the short-term
return (over the first eight weeks), we would not have found justification
for continued investment. But when we added in the returns generated
in subsequent weeks, the picture became much more positive:
THE REASONS FOR LONG-TERM EFFECTS
Several reasons have been given for the existence of long-term
advertising effects. Repeat purchase is often a major factor. Advertising
encourages consumers to try a product; if they like it, they will continue
to buy it. Similarly, when a mobile phone company advertises, even
though the recruitment effect will decay away quickly, many of the
people recruited are likely to stay and provide revenue for a long time
afterwards. In this way, the long-term effect of advertising can build on
the short-term effect.
But thirty years ago, Gordon Brown proposed other powerful
mechanisms that could generate long-term sales effects. First, Gordon
observed that advertising, when viewed, was not likely to generate
purchase interest among consumers who were satisfied with their
current brands. When watching ads on TV, most people are not in the
mood to reconsider their shopping habits. But that same advertising
might have an effect at a future date, when a consumer is in the mood
to try something different. At that point, advertising associations could
influence brand choice. Gordon also demonstrated that associations
created by advertising could enhance the brand experience, making
repeat purchase more likely.
BRANDED MEMORABILITY AND LONG-TERM SALES
Perhaps not surprisingly then, there is a clear relationship between the
Awareness Index (AI) and long-term sales effects. Across categories we
have found that the more impactful and memorable the advertising,
the stronger the long-term effect.
The next chart shows the effects from two different categories, with
the sales effects indexed to adjust for the size of the brands and the
differing nature of the categories. In the first category (packaged
goods), the long-term sales effect increases with the AI. We see a similar
picture when we overlay the long-term ad effects for four competing
automobile brands:
ADVERTISERS TEND TO FOCUS ON THE SHORT-TERM EFFECTS OF
THEIR AD CAMPAIGNS, SINCE THEY ARE EASIEST TO MEASURE. BUT
MOST ADVERTISING DOESN’T PAY FOR ITSELF IN THE SHORT TERM,
SO IT IS ESSENTIAL TO MARKETERS TO UNDERSTAND THE WAYS IN
WHICH ADVERTISING DELIVERS LONG-TERM SALES GROWTH AND
TO MAXIMIZE THESE EFFECTS WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
KNOWLEDGE
POINT
Case History: Long- vs Short-Term Return per GRP
Brand C
ReturnperGRP
Short-term: Weeks 1-8
Medium term: Weeks 9-26
Long-term: From week 27 on
5.7 x bigger than
short-term return
0
10
20
40
60
30
50
110
100
90
70
80
120
Ratio of Long- to Short-Term Sales Effects
30
20
10
0
50
40
1 2 3 4 5+
53%
%Brands
27% 20%
Base: 83 brands with detectable
long-term sales effects from advertising
Ratio of Long to Short-Term Sales Effects
Sales Effects Increase with AI
Awareness Index minus Category Norm
60
40
20
0
100
80
SalesIndex
Below Average Average Above Average High
Packaged Goods
Automotive
SHARE OF AWARENESS
RatioofLong-toShort-TermSalesEffects
CaseHistory:Long-vsShort-TermReturnperGRP
SalesEffectsIncreasewithAI
ADVERTISING:HOW
TOMAXIMIZETHE
LONG-TERMEFFECTS

55. KNOWLEDGE
POINT
ADVERTISING:HOWTOMAXIMIZETHELONG-TERMEFFECTS
THE CONTRIBUTION OF CREATIVE FACTORS
Other creative factors also seem to relate to long-term success. In
2011, we analyzed the copy test results for IPA Effectiveness winners.
Overall, these results included 153 ads for 46 brands. Compared to our
overall average, the TV ads for the winning brands tended to be more
involving, enjoyable, and differentiating. They also had slightly better
branding.
Like the IPA winners, Effie winners, also judged on effectiveness, were
more likely to be more involving, enjoyable, differentiating, and well
branded. (Ad enjoyment, involvement and branding are all major
contributors to an ad’s AI.)
Many individual ads across both sets of award winners achieved high
scores on generating emotion, but the specific emotions generated
varied. This is not surprising, as we know that there is no one specific
emotion to trigger to make advertising successful. Rather, a successful
ad triggers an emotion that is relevant for the advertised brand and its
positioning.
THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF MEDIA WEIGHT
A commitment to advertising, as represented by media weight over
time, seems to benefit brands in the long-term. The following example
from market mix modelling illustrates this common finding. It shows the
relationship between historical advertising weight and the underlying
sales trend in the UK’s 10 TV regions. Each diamond represents a TV
region, while each box is simply an average across sub-groups of the
10 regions (lowest 3 GRPs per week, middle 3 and top 4). We can see
a clear relationship showing that higher spend regions tend to have
higher underlying trends, suggesting that media weight is an important
factor for long-term sales. This is a pertinent finding because the
diminishing returns associated with short-term effects may suggest
that media weight should be cut, whereas the long-term effects could
still be growing.
The preceding chart shows a relationship between raw GRPs and sales
trends. The chart that follows (covering 100 brands) looks at changes
in market share over a three year period in relation to four different
measures of communication: Raw GRPs, Effective GRPs, Raw Share of
Voice (SOV) and Effective SOV. (“Effective” GRPs and SOV are weighted
by the Awareness Index.) We observe that Effective GRPs explain four
times as much change in market share as raw GRPs.
Further, we observe that raw share of voice is more useful than raw
GRPs. But effective share of voice is even more successful at explaining
changes in market share. Individual brands with high spend and strong
AIs can be particularly effective at growing long-term share.
(It is worth noting that when we have looked at share of voice, it is
generally on a year-to-year basis). It is not clear that there is a benefit in
maximizing SOV on a short-term basis. Indeed, since we know that the
majority of advertising effects are long term, it seems likely that weekly
SOV is not a major determinant of advertising success. Additionally, sales
modelling generally finds that competitive campaigns have relatively
little impact on a brand’s sales. Finally, a number of individual case
studies suggest that often a drip campaign is more likely to be effective
than a burst campaign of the same weight. All of these observations
suggest that the head-to-head SOV in a given week is not a key issue.
GRPs per Week vs Underlying Trend across 10 UK TV Regions
GRPs per Week
1200
800
400
0
2000
1600
UnderlyingTrend(£)
Low
TV Regions
2400
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Med
High
Change in Long-term Share best Explained by Share of Voice
% of change explained
0 10 20 30
Raw SOV
Effective SOV
Effective GRP’s
Raw GRP’s
GRPsperWeekvsUnderlyingTrendAcross10UKTVRegions
ChangeinLong-TermShareBestExplainedbyShareofVoice

56. KNOWLEDGE
POINT
ADVERTISING:HOWTOMAXIMIZETHELONG-TERMEFFECTS
THE BENEFITS OF EFFECTIVE SOV
Effective SOV can be increased either by increasing spend or increasing
impact. Ideally, you should aim to do both, but it is possible to grow
share with lower budgets and more efficient copy.
The chart below summarizes the effects on the brands we studied
according to the changes in their share of voice and share of ad
awareness. Where both share of voice (SOV) and share of ad awareness
(SOA) declined (the lower left-hand quadrant), 20 percent more brands
lost share than gained share. Where both SOV and SOA increased (upper
right-hand quadrant), nearly a third more grew than declined. When
brands increased SOV but had lower SOA, 19 percent more declined
than grew. And when ad awareness grows despite a drop in spend, 12
percent more brands grew.
SHARE OF VOICE VS SHARE OF MARKET
When brands have SOV that is higher than their market share, they tend
to grow. In the analysis summarized by the chart below, brands were
ranked according to the difference between their SOV and their market
share. Then the brands were divided into ten equal groups. Each square
on the chart below represents one of those ten groups.
The bottom two groups, those with a share of voice that was 10 to 20
percent less than their market share, were more likely to lose share
over the following 12 months. In contrast, the top 10 percent of brands,
which had SOV 20 percent greater than their market share—were more
likely to grow.
For the brands that fell in the middle, however, there was little or no
relationship between relative share of voice and change in market
share. This highlights the fact that there are many other factors besides
media weight that affect sales. In particular, the strength of the copy is
a crucial variable. (It is also worth highlighting that the absolute weight
of investment, as well as the relative SOV (in total annual investment
terms), may relate to share growth; for example, in a category where
there is little competitive activity, few brands would grow share much if
at all with minimal spend, even though they would have virtually 100%
SOV.)
Clearlythen,increasingyourannualshareofcommunicationsawareness
and having a share of communications awareness higher than your
market share are both related to increased market share. These two
factors are summarized here:
Share of communications awareness relates to probability of share
growth/decline
Share of communications
awareness greater than
share of market
Share of communications
awareness higher than
previous year?
19% 36% 57% 75%
Chances of Share increase
When Share of Voice Exceeds Market Share,
Share is Likely to Increase
Share of voice minus share of market
20%
0%
-20%
-40%
60%
40%
Netbrandsgainingshare
80%
-60%
-80%
r²= 0.77
-20% -10% 0% 10% 20% 30%
ShareofAwareness
WhenShareofVoiceExceedsMarket
Share,ShareisLikelytoIncrease
ShareofCommunicationsAwarenessRelates
toProbabilityofShareGrowth/Decline

57. ONLINE VIDEO WORKS
The case for paid online video is strong: Our MarketNorms® database
shows that, compared to standard online display formats, online video
delivers greater uplifts on measures such as brand favorability and
purchase intent. Not surprisingly, then, online video is set to grow:
Kantar Media predicts that by 2015, global spend for online and mobile
video will reach $10 Billion (USD).
However, while online video still generates increases in awareness,
these lifts are not as large as they were when the medium was new.
The average lift in online ad awareness (just over 4 percent) is less than
half what it was six years ago. The novelty has worn off. Consumers
now expect to see video ads online. If an ad doesn’t engage viewers,
they will just click away. So it becomes more important to understand
how to use this medium to best effect: Our database shows there is
huge variation in performance between the best and the worst online
campaigns.
So to harness this potentially powerful format, you must focus on the
content of that video, along with how and where consumers view or
interact with it. It is also worth noting that the least successful campaigns
can actually have a damaging effect on brand measures; take care not
to alienate your audience.
THE ADVANTAGE OF ADDITIONAL REACH
In terms of reach, currently no other media is in the position to replace
TV. From studies conducted so far online, video delivers an average
reach of 13 percent, much lower than the reach of TV, which is typically
70 percent or more. However, online video is especially effective at
delivering additional reach among light TV viewers.
We monitored one campaign for which online video and TV generated
reach of 74.1 percent for €1.91m. To achieve that level using TV alone
would have cost an extra €200k; the combination of online video and
TV delivered reach more cost effectively.
FORMAT: IN-STREAM OR IN-BANNER?
The term “online video” describes all ad formats utilizing some form of
video; these include videos delivered both in-banner and in-stream. In-
banner video may play automatically when it appears on a page, or it may
require the viewer to click on it. The auto-play version is more arresting
but also causes more disturbance; the viewer controlled version tends
to generate longer viewing, but this has to be balanced against the
decrease in the number of viewers who will choose to watch the ad.
In-stream video plays automatically; web users are not able to skip it
(although this is changing on sites like YouTube). In-stream is typically
used as pre-roll before TV episodes and can be more effective than
in-banner video because the audience is captive and highly engaged.
However, some viewers may watch several episodes in a row, and if they
are bombarded with the same ad over and over again, they are likely
to be irritated. Think about frequency capping or delivering different
creative messages each time to avoid driving down favorability and
purchase intent,
In-stream video delivers stronger uplifts in awareness and favorability,
but both in-stream and in-banner have a similar impact on purchase
intent.
HOWDOIUSEONLINE
VIDEOEFFECTIVELYIN
MYCAMPAIGN?
PAID ONLINE VIDEO IS GROWING RAPIDLY AS AN EFFECTIVE
MARKETING TOOL. ONE OF ITS KEY STRENGTHS IS IN GENERATING
REACH AMONG LIGHT TV VIEWERS. BUT IN PLANNING THE ONLINE
VIDEO COMPONENT OF A CAMPAIGN, IT’S IMPORTANT TO REALIZE
THAT THE ONLINE SETTING IS VERY DIFFERENT THAN THE TV
SETTING, AND THERE ARE NEW CONSIDERATIONS. WHETHER TO
USE REPURPOSED TV ADS OR ORIGINAL MATERIAL WILL DEPEND ON
YOUR OBJECTIVES: WHILE SUCCESSFUL ONLINE VIDEO ADS SHARE
SOME CHARACTERISTICS WITH SUCCESSFUL TV ADS, IN OTHER
RESPECTS THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT.
KNOWLEDGE
POINT
Impact on purchase intent, freq = 1
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms, past 3 years to Q2 2012
Base sizes: Online video (163) Rich media (630) Simple flash (85)
Online video Rich media Simple flash
0.4
0.2
0
0.8
1
0.6
Aided
brand
awareness
ONLINE VIDEO EFFECTIVENESS VARIES GREATLY
Top 20% of campaigns, middle 60%, bottom 20%
-4.3
1.6
9.6
Online ad
awareness
-5.2
3.1
12.6
Message
association
-4.5
1.4
8.5
Brand
favorability
-6.8
0.8
8.7
Purchase
intent
-4.3
0.8
9.2
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
Worst Average Best
10
5
0
-5
-10
15
PercentImpacted
IN-STREAM TENDS TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE
Base sizes: in-stream (33-48) not in-stream (316-450)
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
Aided
brand
awareness
Online ad
awareness
Message
association
Brand
favorability
Purchase
intent
3
2
1
0
5
6
7
8
4
In-Stream Not In-Stream
2.9
2.2
7.1
4.4
3.8
2.3 2.3
1.6
1.3 1.3

58. KNOWLEDGE
POINT
ADVERTISING:HOWTOMAXIMIZETHELONG-TERMEFFECTS
AD LENGTH
In general, the longer the ad, the bigger the effect. While longer ads
will cost more, they are also more likely to generate awareness and
persuasion. However, there are relatively few media placements online
where consumers will tolerate long video ads, so brands should mostly
seek to condense messaging into formats shorter than 30 seconds to
enable maximum online portability and reach.
COMPANION BANNERS
One common issue is whether to support the video with companion
banners. Analysis shows that campaigns that combine online video and
display deliver the strongest brand impact.
CONTENT: TO REPURPOSE OR NOT?
One of the fundamental decisions in implementing online video is
whether to create original material or to repurpose TV ads. Repurposed
ads can have synergistic impact on ad awareness; a form of the media-
multiplier effect. But a successful TV ad may not always work well in an
online environment. Online audiences tend to be more engaged in the
activity than TV viewers; advertising which is not relevant to the task at
hand is likely to be seen as an annoying interruption. So a successful
TV ad may not work as well in the online environment. Besides, video
content made for the web can be more relevant and useful to the
viewer. As an example, if you know the audience has been shopping
for specific goods, then you can provide them with more information
on that product and convey a key benefit to them.
OTHER CREATIVE ISSUES
Our database suggests that the presence of humans (adults or children)
can boost the effectiveness of online video ads. Qualitative insights from
researching a wide variety of online video ads suggest that successful
online video ads have several aspects in common with successful TV
ads. Most campaigns appear to benefit from consistent and simple
messaging. When conveying brand propositions online, aim to keep
the communication simple, direct, and consistent. Focus on one or
two messages. Funny ads are more likely to be enjoyable and involving
than others, and therefore will be more memorable. But, as with all
creativity, humor needs to be used with care. To be successful, it must
help focus on the brand and the intended communication; otherwise,
it can actually detract from the ad’s effectiveness.
But successful online video is dissimilar to successful TV ads in other
ways. First, for all online video formats, many of the top-performing
ads reinforced the message of the voiceover with text or imagery. This
ensures that messages can still be absorbed even if the user doesn’t have
the audio turned on. Other recommendations relate to the reduced
patience for online ads. Online video ads need to engage within the
first few seconds. And since many digital video ads are not watched
through to the end, early branding is also recommended. In order to
convey a more complete brand “story,” two techniques may be useful:
sequencing and telescoping. Sequencing conveys a storyline in short
installments over a number of exposures. Telescoping uses one short
segment to pique the interest of users and then offers them the chance
to continue viewing a longer video on the brand’s web site.
COMPANION BANNERS CAN BOOST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
VIDEO ADS
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
Base sizes:
Companion Banner (464 campaigns)
No Companion Banner (38 campaigns)
Companion Banner No Companion Banner
3.6
2.1
5.9
4.5 4.6
2.2
1.9
1.5
1.3 1.3
Aided
brand
awareness
Online ad
awareness
Message
association
Brand
favorability
Purchase
intent
However, similar impact seen on persuasion metrics
PercentImpacted
1.5
1
0.5
0
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
2
REPURPOSED TV IS MORE LIKELY TO IMPACT ONLINE AD
AWARENESS, WHILST MADE-FOR-WEB DELIVERS WELL ON
FAVORABILITY AND PERSUASION
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
Base sizes: made-for-web (156-218) re-purposed TV (65-90)
Re-purposed TV ads Made-for-web
0.8
2.4
4
2.9
1.5
1.8
0.4
1.8
0.2
1.2
Aided
brand
awareness
Online ad
awareness
Message
association
Brand
favorability
Purchase
intent
ONLINE VIDEO: LONGER ADS HAVE MORE EFFECT
Base sizes: (range from 79-188 ads)
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
3
2
1
0
5
6
7
8
9
4
0 to 10 secs 11 to 20 secs 21 to 30 secs 31+ secs
1.6
1.1
2.5
2.9
2.4
4.1
0.8
1.3
0.8 1
0.7 0.8
7.9
3.5
2.3
5.1
1.7
2.8
0.9
2.7
Aided brand
awareness
Online ad
awareness
Message
association
Brand
favorability
Purchase
intent

59. Millward Brown experts are available to speak globally. Please contact:
Global - Miquet Humphryes
miquet.humphryes@millwardbrown.com
North America - Jamie Jones
jamie.jones@millwardbrown.com
www.millwardbrown.com
Produced by
Miquet Humphryes, Katie Pearce, Alexandra Hill, Dede Fitch
Global Communications and Marketing
Mike Agee, Lisa Parente, Michael Almon, Amanda Bruhn
Global Brand Marketing
Dominic Twose
Knowledge Management
Millward Brown © 2013
Perspectives