Significant Improvements in Key Advertising Metrics
FromTopDown designed four streams of research in cooperation with Arcade Marketing, the foremost supplier of magazine sampling technologies, two global cosmetics companies with well known products in skin care and makeup and two leading retailers. This research was designed to qualitatively and quantitatively determine the impact of sample enhanced advertising on readers. Data culled from the research, the largest product experience study of its kind, not only demonstrates that women are drawn more to sample-enhanced advertising in magazines and direct mail than they are to traditional forms, but that those exposed to these enhanced ads actually buy significantly more product. The Summer 2008 study included expert one-on-one interviews, consumer focus groups (conducted by Greenfield Consulting), an online 20-minute survey of more than 5000 cosmetic and beauty product consumers (conducted by Millward Brown). Moreover, an in-market sales test was conducted across 40 US markets to determine the impact of sample-enhanced direct mail on key commercial metrics such as year over year same store sale growth.
This large-scale study found that ads which include product samples actually create a much stronger and more lasting emotional bond between the brand and the reader than previously thought. In analyzing the responses and preferences of more than 5,000 women’s magazine readers, the FromTopDown / Millward-Brown study demonstrated that a full-page magazine ad which includes a product sample has more than seven times the unaided recall (15%) as the same ad without a sample (2%). Beyond recall, the study found a significant increase in measures of purchase intent from XX% for ads without samples to XX% for the same ad that included a product sample. Other measures of advertising effectiveness such as brand favorability were also positively impacted by the inclusion of product samples in an ad. Not only does experiential advertising give consumers the chance to experience key product attributes in a real-world environment but it also provides sense memory (smell, feel, texture, color) that can create a critical long-lasting emotional impression leading to pre-purchase brand favorability.
There is understandable concern in advertising circles about declines in magazine circulation and, therefore, readership of print advertising. The “good news” for advertisers and magazine publishers in the FromTopDown research is that even with lower magazine readership, sample enhanced ads can deliver mote high quality impressions than traditional ads. Because of the higher readership and recall levels of sample enhanced ads, the true cost per thousand (CPM) of these ads is significantly lower than their traditional counterparts, This is despite the fact that sample enhanced ads cost a premium to execute. The math is compelling.
