Consumers are branching out to new screens and increasing the number of media hours in their days—and marketers are following suit. Advertising on digital media is growing by leaps and bounds, with online video and mobile experiencing the highest year-over-year increases, highlighting the importance of multi-platform strategies to brand marketers. La Quinta Inns & Suites—whose core consumer is the 25-64 year-old male business traveler—recently turned to Nielsen to measure its latest cross-screen campaign, and the effort yielded five-star results.
Launched in early 2013, the cross-screen “La Quinta, we take care of you, so you can take care of business” campaign integrated multiple screens and focused on driving awareness and purchase intent among the hotel chain’s key consumers.
Shortly after the campaign began, Nielsen discovered that La Quinta was only reaching 46 percent of its key demo across both TV and online. The TV plan skewed more toward the 65+ age group and women, prompting La Quinta to examine its existing TV strategy and make adjustments to better reach its 25-64-year-old male audience. The online part of the campaign was also underperforming, as it was only reaching 51 percent of its intended audience, below the norm for similarly aimed campaigns.
When looking specifically at the resonance of the ads, Nielsen found that several online publishers drove interest in purchase intent. However, one outperformed the rest on both reaching the key demographic and driving brand lift. As a result, although this was the most expensive site, it was the most cost effective, according to a cost-per-thousand impression analysis.
Through these analyses, La Quinta identified the best mix of sites and programs to maximize every dollar spent. Because Nielsen was able to measure the cross-screen reach and resonance of the ads during the campaign, La Quinta was able to make adjustments that improved cross-screen exposure to its key audience by 100 percent.
Understanding where strategies are on point and where they’re falling short—in real-time—is key in maximizing return on investment and developing a strong consumer base. Campaigns that integrate multiple screens continue to reap greater results than single-media campaigns, signaling the end of a single-screen era.
