NEW YORK — Assessing the effectiveness of ad positions in magazines is gravitating from art to science.
Marketing consultant Brand Keys has found a high correlation between its brand-to-media consonance measure — which it applied to rate the overall impact of ads in different positions in magazines — and how effectively those ads achieved awareness, established brand image and prompted an extremely likely purchase intent among readers.
In short, the Brand Keys ad placement system marks an attempt to measure an ad’s return on investment based on its position in a magazine. Brands currently using the system include Kohler bathroom and kitchen fixtures, Masterchem paints and primers and energy provider Keyspan.
A fragrance ad for Lauren Style in the November issues of Vogue and Cosmopolitan and the December edition of Glamour was evaluated by a combined 1,600 female readers of those titles, ages 25 to 40. Four hundred of those women were surveyed on the ad’s brand-to-media consonance, or B2MC, in each of the three magazines, and 1,200 were asked to assess their awareness of the ad, image of the brand and likelihood of buying it, as they viewed the ad in eight positions in each title.
The strongest correlations between brand-to-media consonance and the three measures of the Lauren Style ad’s effectiveness were in Vogue (which, like WWD and Glamour, is owned by Advance Publications Inc.), where awareness of the ad showed a 92 percent correlation with B2MC; brand image registered a 93 percent correlation with B2MC, and extremely likely purchases, a 76 percent correlation.
A surprise to Brand Keys president Robert Passikoff was the strength of ad positions farther back in the fashion magazines than the first several pages — and in some cases, deep in the books. “The issue is, ‘Can I predict where an ad may engender a better response?’” Passikoff said. “I expected placements farther back would not get reactions quite as strong.”
For example, while the Lauren Style ad in its original position in the November issue of Vogue — a spread on the inside cover and first page — produced the strongest rankings in ad awareness, with a 12 percent response; brand image, with a 6.8 out of 7, and purchase intent, with a 23 percent response, it was followed closely by the inside back cover and horoscope, and the table of contents in two of the three metrics, brand image and purchase intent (see chart).
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Not surprisingly, the correlations between B2MC and purchase intent were not as high as those between B2MC and ad awareness and brand image, in two of the three titles measured, Vogue and Cosmopolitan. As Passikoff pointed out, “Personal taste comes more into play with purchase intent. Someone can be aware of an ad and like the brand image [portrayed], but that isn’t necessarily a predictor of a person’s taste.”
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Brand to Media Consonance (B2MC): Ad Placement
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Ad Position Vogue, November 2004
|
B2MC Rank
|
B2MC
(share of respondents) |
Ad Awareness
(scale of 1 to 7) |
Brand Image Extremely Likely to Purchase
(share of respondents) |
| 1. Inside front cover/first page |
132
|
12%
|
6.8
|
23%
|
| 2. Inside back cover |
130
|
11%
|
6.7
|
22%
|
| 3. Horoscope |
127
|
10%
|
6.8
|
22%
|
| 4. Table of contents |
126
|
8%
|
6.8
|
22%
|
| 5. Beauty editorial |
123
|
6%
|
6.2
|
12%
|
| 6. Editor’s letter |
121
|
5%
|
6.5
|
15%
|
| 7. Page 3 |
112
|
5%
|
6.2
|
13%
|
| 8. Second fragrance ad |
111
|
3%
|
6.3
|
14%
|
| Correlation with B2MC score |
92%
|
93%
|
76%
|
|
|
Source: Brand Keys, November 2004, based on a survey of 1,600 women ages 25-40
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