More details were released Friday on Arbitron and Nielsen's "live" Project Apollo case study for a specific brand of pain reliever (2/28/07 TVBR #41).
Measures of media and purchase behavior from the 11,000 consumers in the Apollo pilot is starting to deliver on the promise of improved planning tools for the seven marketers who are participating in a joint marketing research service by.
This case study is only one of the types of analysis that the seven Project Apollo participants are seeing sharing. Using data from Apollo, and specifically audience data among current brand users aged 25-54, to guide the selection of networks and dayparts, an advertiser of a specific brand of pain reliever would be able to garner a 16% increase in the delivery of consumers aged 25-54 who buy the brand when compared to a conventional ad schedule based on traditional media planning tools, all while keeping the total budget at the same level.
"The case study shows that consumer-centric measurement can produce superior media and market targeting," said Howard Shimmel, SVP/Client Insights of The Nielsen Company. "With information from Project Apollo, media plans can be tailored to deliver behavioral-based marketing targets. The potential result: more effective ad schedules."
In this case study, the improved schedule was the result of a two-step process.
The first step was to look at the amount of discrimination that exists in Project Apollo data for this marketing target. Discrimination is measured by comparing the marketing target rating to the total demographic rating, evaluating cable networks at a daypart basis. This step helped determine if making choices among cable networks and dayparts using a marketing target could yield more brand buyers than choices made using a conventional media target such as Adults 25-54.
For the brand buyers of a specific pain reliever, the first step discovered a fair amount of discrimination at the daypart and cable network level.
Less than 30% of the dayparts on cable nets delivered the pain reliever brand buyer rating points at about the same level as Adults 25-54 rating points. Nearly half of all the dayparts across the cable nets delivered significantly more or less brand buyer ratings than demographic ratings.
This means it's more than worthwhile for a planner to look at Project Apollo-generated brand buyer ratings when selecting which cable network and daypart to place on an ad buy, said the study.
The second step was to build a new commercial schedule by selecting availabilities from those cable network dayparts that deliver significantly more pain reliever brand buyer rating points than the conventional Adults 25-54. The network dayparts selected for the enhanced schedule included an equal mix of dayparts that were included in the original plan and of new dayparts.
"The value of Project Apollo can also be realized by the encoding media," said Shimmel. "Armed with information on how well their networks, dayparts and programs deliver the marketing targets of potential advertisers, the media can develop schedules, sponsorships and product placement opportunities that marketers will be more willing to pay a premium to participate in."
