The Boycott of The Sun in Merseyside 'has led to lower levels of Euroscepticism'

"The report, authored by London School of Economics behavioural political scientist Florian Foos and Zurich University’s Daniel Bischof, says the long-standing Sun boycott lowered Euroscepticism among the “unskilled” working class who “made up a large share of Sun readers before the disaster”.
The report said “attitudes towards the EU got significantly more positive in Merseyside during the boycott”.
Liverpool, The Wirral and Sefton in Merseyside all voted Remain.
The study, which used data from the annual British Social Attitudes survey and is available online, added: “…the boycott of the most important Eurosceptic newspaper – The Sun in Merseyside as a consequence of The Sun’s reporting on the Hillsborough sporting disaster – led to a decrease of Euroscepticism in Merseyside, which we estimate to amount to around 11 percentage points.
“Moreover, our results suggest that The Sun boycott in Merseyside might have decreased the Leave vote share in Merseyside in the 2016 EU referendum.”
The authors said the study showed “sustained media campaigns on emerging issues can have large, lasting, and ultimately, consequential effects on public opinion, and public policy”."
Source:  Press Gazette, 27th August 2019

Addressable TV advertising is more engaging and more effective

"To understand the impact of addressable TV on both consumer viewing and ad engagement, Sky Media partnered with BVA BDRC, Differentology and Affectiva to measure the impact of addressable TV campaigns using AdSmart. The extensive study included ground-breaking facial coding and emotional analytics. Findings are based on more than 130 campaign effectiveness projects, in which 300,000 Sky subscribers were interviewed. The research reveals:
Addressable drives ad engagement. Facial recognition analysis revealed that when addressable ads are on TV, viewers’ attentiveness to the screen can be as a third higher (35%) and on average 21% more engaged.
Addressable cuts channel switching during ads. An analysis using 52,000 ad breaks showed that channel switching was halved (reducing by 48%) when addressable ads were in the first three positions of a break, compared to standard linear TV ads.
Addressable increases spontaneous ad recall. Viewers of addressable TV ads are 10% more likely to spontaneously recall an ad compared to linear TV advertising.
Addressable is amplified when combined with linear. Combining linear with addressable TV advertising increases ad awareness by nearly a quarter (22%). When the frequency of addressable ads is equal or higher to linear exposure ad recall is boosted by half (49%).
Addressable works. Higher engagement and relevance have clear business results, increasing purchase intent by 7% overall and by as much as 20% for new to Tv advertisers who benefit more from the exposure and credibility TV delivers.
Tangible business results for new to TV brands. Local brands like Gasway (35%) and Richardson’s Garden Centre (17%) among 100s of businesses seeing significant business growth through the use of addressable TV advertising."
Source:  Data from Sky, reported in a press release, 15th August 2019

Burger King's 'Whopper Detour' campaign drove 1.5m app downloads

"Burger King boosted downloads of its mobile app by 1.5 million with its "Whopper Detour" stunt campaign that offered 1-cent Whoppers to smartphone users who were near rival McDonald's locations. José Cil, CEO of Burger King's parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI), revealed the results as part of a quarterly earnings call with analysts on Feb. 11.
Customers had to download the upgraded Burger King app and get within 600 feet of a McDonald's restaurant to activate the offer. After customers placed an order, the app navigated them away from McDonald's and toward the nearest Burger King to pick up their food within an hour.
The campaign made the Burger King app the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store for several days in a row and the most downloaded QSR app in the U.S. among direct competitors in December, Cil said. RBI also owns Popeyes and Tim Hortons."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 12th February 2019

A campaign on Spotify increased visits to Baskin-Robbins by 12%

"Baskin-Robbins saw a 12% lift in store visits — 4.3-times industry benchmarks — from an ad campaign on music streaming service Spotify, according to data verified by Placed. The offline attribution firm joined Spotify as a measurement partner in the United States, per an announcement.
Baskin-Robbins attributed 430,000 U.S. store visits to people who heard the "Baskin-Robbins Got Me Like" ad last summer. The campaign also drove 47,000 incremental store visits and a positive return on investment. Each ad urged listeners to "Find A Shop" and directed them to click and see the nearest Baskin-Robbins store, per a Spotify case study.
Dave Nagel, senior director of consumer engagement at Baskin Robbins, said Placed helped the ice-cream chain to make more efficient decisions about its media spend on platforms such as Spotify. Placed joins Comscore, Digitalist LeanLab, Foursquare, Integral Ad Science, Moat, Nielsen and Nielsen Catalina Solutions as a Spotify measurement partner."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 21st February 2019

Ads for Subway, targeted on the weather, helped drive a 31% increase in store visits

"Subway came to IBM Watson Advertising with the goal of driving an increase in store visits. They were interested in leveraging the connection between weather and QSR foot traffic to drive awareness of their $4.99 Footlong promotion via The Weather Channel mobile app. To build awareness and ultimately drive in-store visits to their restaurants, Subway leveraged Watson Advertising’s newest targeting capability – WEATHERfx Footfall with Watson. This capability leverages machine learning to process weather, sales, and footfall data specific to a brand’s store locations to predict increases in footfall traffic and enable brands to intelligently adapt and optimize their media to capitalize on it in real-time. In addition to helping drive a 31% lift in store traffic vs. those who weren't exposed to Subway's digital advertising,
Subway also saw a 53% reduction in campaign waste, salvaging about 7.9M impressions that would have otherwise gone to waste."
Source:  Press release from IBM, 24th September 2018

Nike's online sales rose 31% following its 'Colin Kaepernick' ad

"Talk of Nike Inc. sales taking a hit from the company’s decision to put ex–NFL player Colin Kaepernick at the center of its latest “Just Do It” campaign is looking overblown, based on data from a Silicon Valley digital commerce research company.
After an initial dip immediately after the news broke, Nike’s NKE, +1.93% online sales actually grew 31% from the Sunday of Labor Day weekend through Tuesday, as compared with a 17% gain recorded for the same period of 2017, according to San Francisco–based Edison Trends.
“There was speculation that the Nike/Kaepernick campaign would lead to a drop in sales, but our data over the last week does not support that theory,” said Hetal Pandya, co-founder of Edison Trends."

Source:  MarketWatch, 10th September 2018

Note - (1) It's unofficial data, rather than from Nike itself, and (2) it's really too soon to see an effect from its new ad.

Pokémon GO has generated an estimated $1.8bn in payments from players in 2 years

"Released two years ago today, Niantic’s Pokémon GO became an overnight sensation. While the fervor has subsided in the 24 months since that game-changing day, players worldwide continue to spend more than $2 million per day in their quest to catch those original Pokémon and the dozens that have been added since launch. This has led to the game reaching $1.8 billion in player spending, according to the latest Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates, having crossed the $1 billion milestone in January 2017."

Source:  Sensor Tower, 6th July 2018

In-App transactions increased by 46% in 2017

"Marketers around the globe saw a 46% jump in in-app transactions last year, as shoppers continued to migrate toward mobile shopping platforms, according to a study by adtech firm Criteo.
North American retailers that offer a shopping app generate 67% of all e-commerce sales conducted on mobile devices, while in-app transactions make up two-thirds of mobile transactions for retailers that sell products in both an app and on a mobile site.
Shopping apps also had higher sales conversion rates of 21%, compared to the standard 6% on the mobile web. Retail categories with the highest share of mobile sales included sporting goods (44%), fashion/luxury (40%) and health/beauty (38%)."

Source;  Mobile Marketer, 22nd February 2018

Unilever & Nestle get a return of £2 for every £1 spend on digital display ads in the UK

"On average, for every £1 Unilever and Nestlé spend on display ads in the UK both brands return almost double in sales, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureaux (IAB UK).
The figures come as a year of FMCG digital efficiency drives and agency reviews draws to a close, with the IAB claiming that every £1 spent on digital display units yields a typical ROI of £1.94 across all major British supermarkets.
The study tracked the programmatic display advertising of nine consumer goods brands including Persil, Magnum, Tropicana, PG Tips and Nescafe across a number of premium sites like the Guardian, Mail Online, Yahoo and Gumtree.
Though it didn’t specify the breakdowns for individual brand ROI, it noted that one brand it monitored saw a £3.38 ROI for every £1 it invested.
The research was completed over a year-long period, comparing display spend with short-term sales numbers gleaned from i2c – a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and Nectar card owner Aimia – and Nielsen’s Homescan data. The resulting data, which was commissioned by i2c and the IAB gives an insight into the shopping behaviour at all major UK supermarkets."

Source:  Data from the IAB, reported by The Drum, 12th December 2017

Cutting ad load times boosts ad revenue

"Cutting down the amount of code on its webpages has helped Meredith make more revenue per visitor.
Meredith, which publishes women’s lifestyle titles including Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle, began an audit of its code a year ago. This led it to remove several vendors and shift code from browsers to servers. The code audit helped Meredith speed up its ad-rendering times by 15-20 percent across desktop and mobile, which, along with an increase in native advertising, contributed to a 20 percent increase in revenue per visit, said Matt Minoff, Meredith’s chief digital officer.
The results were especially dramatic on mobile, where Meredith gets about 60 percent of its traffic and where speed is especially important: There, getting ads to load faster helped drive a 74 percent increase in revenue per visit. Meredith wouldn’t share raw numbers."

Source:  Digiday, 21st June 2017

'TV advertising is 5 times more effective at driving KPIs than online display'

"In a study published by Neustar commissioned by Turner and Horizon Media, TV remains the most effective way to advertise. The research, which extensively examines the effect of advertising across the major marketing channels, showed that dollar for dollar, TV provides the most scale and delivers the highest return on ad spend from both a sales and awareness perspective.
“This research reaffirms that television continues to be the biggest driver of marketing success today, yet there remains a lot of room to grow even further as the industry and consumer habits shift,” said Beth Rockwood, ‎VP, Portfolio Research and Chief of Staff, Turner. “Recognizing that growth opportunity, Turner has been one of the industry’s biggest proponents for reimagining the experience of television – developing new audience targeting methods, as well as forging innovative content partnerships, to deliver highly engaging, unexpected experiences to fans.”
The insights were derived from Neustar’s advanced analytics software, which ran thousands of models spanning key advertising categories — automotive, financial services, CPG, retail, telecom, theatrical movies, QSR and consumer electronics — and used seven years’ worth of data. Ultimately, the research found that for a $1 million investment, television’s lift is consistently 7 times better than paid search and 5 times better than online display advertising."

Source:  Neustar blog, 1st June 2017

Click the link to download the full report.  KPIs included measures like sales and new account opens.

Pokemon GO has sent more than 500 million visitors to McDonalds in Japan

"Pokémon GO-maker Niantic says it has driven 500 million visitors to sponsored locations like McDonald’s Japan where gamers can score a special virtual good. But it never said how much those sponsors paid per visitor delivered by the game.
But in an interview published yesterday by Brazil’s Globo newspaper, Niantic VP of strategic partnerships Mathieu de Fayet said (translated), “The idea is to offer players items at certain locations, and partners pay $0.15 for each visitor attracted to the game. And we’ve already attracted 500 million visitors. In Japan [at the game’s peak last summer], each activated McDonald’s store attracted 2,000 visitors a day.”
However, we followed up with Niantic, and a spokesperson claimed that $0.15 number is incorrect, possibly due to a translation error. The company says “Niantic’s cost per visit (CPV) model visit has partners spending less than $.50 / daily unique visit to sponsored locations.”
At $0.15 per visit the math would indicate that the sponsorships could have racked up $75 million in revenue for Niantic, while the high bound of $0.50 would have generated $250 million.
Given that McDonald’s Japan activated 3,000 stores in the country, that price would mean that at the game’s peak, the fast-food giant would have paid out roughly $900,000 per day to Niantic for the Pokémon GO sponsorship at $0.15 per visitor, or $3 million per day at $0.50 each."

Source:  TechCrunch, 31st May 2017

dunnhumby's advice for FMCG advertisers on Facebook

"dunnhumby’s analysis shows that advertisers who planned campaigns with a relevant but broad reach, running for more than 6 weeks, at a frequency above 1 per person per week saw the greatest benefit from including Facebook on their media plans.
Combining these findings with those of the papers published last year, and applying the adjustment factors referenced, we are starting to see that for a campaign to achieve optimal sales lift, it should ideally be planned with a frequency ≥1 per person per week (not to be confused with f=1), across a duration of more than 6 weeks.
If an advertiser knows that people outside a core audience will not buy their products – perhaps due to them only being relevant to one life stage or one gender – then narrow targeting could be optimal, but more generally the rule is that a far greater return on ad spend will be achieved by aiming for as broad a relevant audience as possible."
Source:  Blog post by Facebook Business, 31st March 2017

Instagram has 1m monthly advertisers

"Instagram has undergone more changes in the last year than during the previous five. We introduced Instagram Stories – a new way for businesses to share everyday moments – and the use of video exploded. We welcomed a new brand identity and the community grew to more than 600 million globally. At the same time, we were building a thriving business. We now have eight million businesses using business profiles, with the greatest adoption coming from the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and the United Kingdom. We also have more than one million active monthly advertisers. – up from 200,000 this time last year. And in the last month, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, received directions, called, emailed or direct-messaged to learn about a business."

Source:  Blog post from Instagram, 22nd March 2017

Faster mobile ads are much more effective

"According to research released today by Google and Teads, the video tech company, mobile publishers using Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) video inventory perform better than those that stick with the traditional mobile web.
Results showed publishers using AMP, an open-source Google initiative, saw clickthrough rates increase by 200 percent, completion rates increase by 15 percent and ad performance increase 18 percent. Nearly 100 publishers are now using AMP including Mashable, Rodale, L'Express and Trinity Mirror.
In a blog post detailing the findings, Eric Shih, global svp of business development at Teads, said videos by brands and publishers don't just need to be fast, they also should "engage, educate and entertain."
"If you've ever waited impatiently for your favorite site to load only to watch an annoying pop-up take over your smartphone screen, you can probably understand why user engagement decreases," Shih wrote. "That type of experience doesn't unlock the full potential of video advertising."
This year, Google and Facebook have both made big pushes to speed up the web by cutting down on ad sizes and load times. In September, a few months after Google launched its AMP program, Facebook announced it would start helping advertisers decrease load times while also potentially not delivering ads that were too big if a user's internet connection couldn't handle them."

Source:  AdWeek - 2nd December 2016

Advertising on premium websites delivers greater ad effectiveness

"comScore conducted research to examine the branding effectiveness of digital display and video ads appearing on Digital Content Next (DCN) member sites, a group of brand name media generally considered to be “premium publishers,” as compared to other publishers. The research demonstrates that premium publisher do drive higher brand lift effectiveness due in large part to the ‘halo effect’ of the contextual environment in which ads are seen.
Key findings from the study can be summarized as follows:
Display and video ads on DCN premium publisher sites had an average of 67% higher brand lift than non-DCN publishers, confirming that premium sites deliver premium performance.
Premium publishers are more than 3x more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics, such as favorability, consideration and intent to recommend.
Premium publisher effectiveness is driven in part by higher viewability rates which include lower levels of invalid traffic."

Source:  Data from comScore, reported on their site, 14th July 2016

TV out-performs digital for ad attention and recall

"Speaking at the annual Nielsen Consumer 360 event, the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) unveiled findings from a new platform usage study that show TV outperforming computer, smartphone and tablet in viewer ad attention and recall.
The study, conducted by Hub Entertainment Research, was designed to compare viewing of TV shows and advertising across screens to determine whether engagement and recall differ among platforms, and to identify the drivers that have the greatest impact on the viewing experience.
Key findings include:
Attention to advertising and ad recall, two important measures of advertising engagement, are similar among viewers using computer, smartphone and tablet, but higher among those watching a TV set. For ad recall, 62 per cent of TV viewers were able to recall half or more advertisers, followed by tablet (47 per cent), smartphone (46 per cent) and computer (45 per cent). For attentiveness, 29 per cent of participants rated TV an 8-10 on a 10-point scale where 10 means complete attention, ahead of smartphone (23 per cent), computer (20 per cent) and tablet (17 per cent).
Enjoyment, a measure of programme engagement, was high across all platforms but especially so among smartphone viewers.
Platform experience is related to actual screen size. Independent of other factors, the viewing experience was significantly more positive among TV set viewers. 89 per cent of participants rated TV an 8-10 on a 10-point scale for enjoyment, followed by tablet (63 per cent), computer (54 per cent) and smartphone (53 per cent).
Multi-tasking negatively impacts engagement with ads (sponsor recall) but not with show (plot recall). In addition, the study found that very little multi-tasking behaviour (7-11 per cent, depending on the platform) during ads was related to the brands featured in the ads themselves."

Source:  Advanced TV, 30th June 2016

Note - I'm assuming this is a US study

Lena Dunham's Lenny Letter has 400,000 subscribers and an open rate of 65%

"This mix has helped Lenny Letter reach more than 400,000 subscribers, and the newsletter has a covetable 65 percent open rate. All content is also published to the Lenny Letter website (after a delay), and the site’s uniques topped 600,000 in February. While Lenny Letter doesn't have thorough demographic information on its readers yet, most are women between the ages of 18 and 34."
Source;  Nieman Lab, 2nd March 2016

Apple Pay drives better performance in commerce apps

"That mobile apps are adopting the service at a fast rate makes sense: Getting Apple Pay into a store requires pricey new terminals, but app developers only need to insert some code.
The ease of use in an app—consumers only have to scan their fingerprint into their phone—could spur more frequent buying and larger purchases, says Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a technology research firm.
For example, Domino Go, an interior design app, is running exclusive deals for purchases made with Apple Pay, and says it’s seen a 436% boost in average daily revenue after adding the option.
Staples told Quartz that checkout times are 35 seconds less than traditional methods like credit and debit cards, and Instacart, an on-demand grocery app, said customers checkout 58% faster with Apple Pay than other payment methods, saving them about a minute on average.
Apple Pay is also helping with cart abandonment—when consumers get frustrated plugging in their payment and shipping information, and just give up. JackThreads, a popular men’s fashion site, says customers who use Apple Pay are 92% more likely to finish a transaction than those who don’t."

Source:  Quartz, 9th February 2016

Dollar Shave Club has 2.2m subscribers

"You remember Dollar Shave Club, don’t you? The company’s first ads, which called for simplicity and emancipation from razors with “a vibrating handle, a flashlight, a back scratcher, and 10 blades” were actually funny enough to go viral over the past few years. The first of them has been viewed more than 19 million times on YouTube.
Well, that upstart company is now claiming to have overtaken Schick as the second-best selling razor cartridge in the U.S., though as a private company the numbers haven’t been independently confirmed.
Unlike razor giants Schick and Gillette, Dollar Shave Club uses a subscription model. The company currently claims to have 2.2 million subscribers who receive either four or five razors per month, depending on the plan."

Source:  Time, 8th September 2015