Effectiveness

IAB report | Summary | Conclusion |

Internet Advertising Bureau studies the Internet advertising effectiveness from Jan. 1 to June 30, 1997, simultaneously across twelve leading Web sites: CNN, CompuServe, ESPN, Sports Zone, Excite, Geocities, Hotwired, Looksmart, Lycos, MacWorld, National Geographic Online, Pathfinder and Ziff-Davis.

Summary

• Advertisement awareness: An additional exposure to the advertisement boosted advertisement awareness by 30% on average (from 34.0% to 44.1 %), statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.
• Brand awareness: Across the 12 brands tested, an increase of 5%, on average, in awareness of the brands (from 61% to 64%) was observed
• Product attribute communication: Internet advertising provides significant brand communication power.
  • Since each of the 12 brands studies had varying creative objectives, the research investigated attitudinal shifts on a brand-by-brand, questionnaire item-by-item basis.
  • Six of the twelve Web ad banners meet statistically significant threshold of 90% on brand perception items
  • Five out of six demonstrate clear positive change while the sixth shows a polarization of positive and negative attitudes, with a positive net effect on purchase intent
  • In general, Internet advertising can positively impact brand perceptions.
• Product intent: A positive increase for nine of the twelve brands tested was observed. On average, Consumer Loyalty increased 4% across the twelve brands tested after only one exposure.

Conclusion
Nearly all of the impact measured was generated without a 'click-through' to the advertiser's site,-proving the power of the ubiquitous banner.