According to a media release put out by Nielsen in Aussie last week, one-third of Australian consumers exposed to an online advertisement are able to recall that advertisement when asked, and 41 percent are able to link the correct brand to an un-branded advertisement, according to new online advertising effectiveness benchmarks released today by market research company Nielsen.

The Nielsen research, developed over three years and based on more than 100,000 Australian respondents, for the first time provides Australian organisations with a set of reliable, local performance benchmarks against which to measure the effectiveness of their online advertising campaigns.

The Nielsen benchmarking research revealed that intention to purchase or use products or services increased by 4.9 percentage points following exposure to an online advertising campaign, and brand sentiment increased by 5.3 points.

Awareness also saw a jump following exposure to an online advertising campaign – top-of-mind awareness jumped 3.1 points while prompted awareness increased by 3.5 points. The likelihood of a consumer recommending a brand following exposure to an online advertising campaign increased by 4.4 percentage points.

“At a time when marketers are seeking to invest their resources where they will gain the most return on their investment, the Nielsen benchmarks provide further evidence of online advertising’s effectiveness. We look forward to even more data being made available from both Nielsen and others, demonstrating to agencies and advertisers how online can offer a significantly more targeted, measurable and effective medium than any other media to reach, engage and influence consumers,” said Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia.

Advertising’s role is often to convince the target market that the company, product or service being promoted will meet their need, be their first choice, the one to buy. A key mantra of my agency career was: “advertising’s job is to get you onto the choice set.”

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about the role of online advertising as a sales channel, versus as an advertising medium.  With online now over 20% of local media consumption, the role of online advertising is much more about getting onto the choice set, and building a relationship with a consumer, than a simple action or acquisition, although it can be a highly measurable direct response tool also.

In an online world, marketers have been sold the idea of a medium that’s too sales-focused. None more so than through an ill-fated sales construct called Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA). The concept of CPA asks for much, much more than choice. The advertiser only pays the publisher if the consumer (viewer) undertakes an action or acquisition.

As the sophistication of consumers lifts, expecting a sale (eg for a laptop) off a single web banner is ludicrous.  Just getting on the choice set is a tough enough task to ask of your display advertisement! So what about trying to be someone’s second choice then, rather than their first choice? Is that an odd sounding goal?

Well, think of the number of people holding two credit cards? Or two mobile phones? Or an campaign to credit card holders positioning your debit card as their second payment option for EFTPOS & ‘card-not-present’ transactions. If they acquire, and love the debit experience, they’re highly likely to make that card their first choice. But asking for them to switch from debit to credit BEFORE acquiring the card might be a step too far this early in the adoption process.

A great example of the second choice strategy was Rabobank’s award winning positioning as ‘Your significant other bank’. Here’s a reminder of the campaign with some amusing behind the scenes takes.

Being second choice means you’re more likely to become a consumer’s first choice under the right set of circumstances. I’ve been an Audi driver for seven years but recently started considering Subaru as my replacement primary vehicle. I’m looking for a 4WD that can fit a dog in the back and get me offroad. Of course, Audi can cater to my needs but Subaru is getting a good look in. They might even get my business in a head over heart call.

Realistic marketers will know the value of being second choice. I reckon online has a powerful role in positioning brands within consumers’ choice sets. But knowing when it’s right to chase the second place position is critical, or you might just come last.

Got this from Nigel Hammersley via Twitter this morning.  Very clever … and stimulating.  Worthy of a quick view. Find his post at hammersley’s posterous.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers IAB Insight Report for the quarter to June 2009 has been out for a little while.  Sorry for not posting some graphs earlier.

The good news is that New Zealand online advertising is up 6.56% on Q1/09 (Calendar) with total spend calculated at $52.49M.
Spend for a rolling year is at $199.8M bringing online closer to radio and magazines.

Display advertising grew 5.75% in Q2.  As a comparison to published television advertising revenue, online display adspend grew 10.5% in the six months to June 2009. This compares with TV which declined 13.3% over the same period.

Whilst all media and creative spend has taken a bit of a hammering over the past year, online is emerging relatively unscathed from the current recessionary period,  and future quarters should show a structural change to the media landscape with newspapers and television continuing to be hit particularly hard.

New Zealand’s leading independent agency, Sugar, have a new site. Tight copy and a clean quick load time. Good eating of your own dogfood, guys.

While on the subject of agencies, there have been a few earthquakes in Adland recently. A lot of very big pitches underway and a bunch of change, driven in part by cost-savings, increased expectations of accountability and a big decline in TV revenue. Changes with TVNZ, Westpac (Retail), Nokia (media), ALAC, TV3, etc are creating structural changes in the shape of the local industry and there is still a lot of dust to settle. And finally, good on Jason Wells for finally getting the top Wellington job at Y&R. His leadership and strategic thinking is top notch.

One of the ad team at Trade Me flicked me an interesting graph this morning. A daily breakdown of the August traffic to New Zealand’s largest home page, Trade Me, and runner up, YahooXtra as independently measured by Nielsen Online from tags placed on our pages.

Trade Me is New Zealand's favourite home page (August 2009)

I was surprised at the low weekend rating of YahooXtra; don’t people check their xtra mail accounts in the weekend? You would want a big discount if you advertised on their Saturday. Interestingly, Stuff.co.nz is now New Zealand’s third largest website and New Zealand’s most popular news and entertainment site, bigger than nzherald.co.nz.

Audience participation was required partway through this number in Auckland’s Vector Arena last Saturday as the sound system failed Art and Paul.  I was lucky to be there for their first venue in their final world tour and must admit to having a tear in my eye as the whole arena picked up the tune where Simon & Garfunkel left off.  It was a truely special moment for everyone there.  Shame about the individual singing on this clip.

#followfriday. Read Liv’s blog article: http://www.livlarge.co.nz/2009/05/using-video-to-increase-site-traffic

 Courtesy of Gordon White’s twitter, Advertising Age reports that LinkedIn traffic “skyrockets” as executives lose their jobs and seek to reconnect with lapsed networks.  The other place that these people go are the job sites.

Ad Age reports that LinkedIn is adding one new member every second and a few other interesting stats - and suggests that LinkedIn might not be able to monetise this traffic.  Great update on LinkedIn, thanks Gordon.

In the mysterious world of the Internet, sometimes the most obvious statistics get hidden amongst the plentiful jargon and myriad of metrics.  NBR commentator, Chris Keall, has this week highlighted the phenomenal size of Trade Me’s membership, asserting that the answer to the question: ’How many New Zealanders use Trade Me? is simply ‘All of us’. 

His explanation of how UBs (Unique Browsers) are calculated is pretty accurate.  However the measure still to be cracked is a calculation of how many people either share the same pc/internet connection, or gather around computer screens as the auction nears closing, auto-extends with bids frantically placed by multiple parties and tension rises.   If it was a magazine or newspaper we would calculate this as ‘readership’, but for computers connected to the Internet, we assume one IP address means one computer and one person.

Perhaps counting UBs is a relatively conservative measure of how many unique viewers are spending time on websites such as Trade Me?