Hitwise UK Releases Media Impact Study

Report Reveals Online Media is Effective for Raising Brand Awareness And Driving Brand Association

London, September 27^th – Hitwise UK (www.hitwise.co.uk) today published findings in a report “The Hitwise Media Impact Report”, measuring the impact of offline advertising on online consumer behaviour.

The co-authored report from Hitwise, Yahoo! Search Marketing and digital media agency i-level, compared offline and online media spend data from Orange Retail, Sky and The AA with Hitwise Competitive Intelligence data over a six-month periodto establish that an integrated media approach can maximize the effectiveness of all media spend and to show that online is a highly effective medium for raising brand awareness and driving brand association.

“This research has been very valuable in increasing our understanding of the role search plays in the overall marketing and communications mix, as well as our appreciation of the effects of increased offline marketing activity on search as an acquisition channel”, said Joel Dawson, Digital Marketing Controller, BSkyB.

Key findings:

Integration

• When Sky’s media campaign included both online and offline advertising (from September to November 2005) the strongest result was achieved online, with searches for the Sky brand increasing +20% and searches for the Sky URL more than doubling. When offline ran without the integration of online in March and April 2005, the same lift in searches was not evident.
• A press campaign for Orange featuring product offers led to an increase in searches for the product, illustrating the need to integrate pay-per-click campaigns with offline promotions. Analysis of direct press advertisements run by Orange reveals that press advertising promoting a specific mobile phone handset led to an increase in searches for that handset.

BrandBuilding

Banner advertising proved a successful means to drive brand association of Sky with HD. High definition (HD) television was introduced as a new concept to consumers in 2005, and it remains closely associated with Sky’s brand. Searches for “sky hd” significantly outweighed searches for “hd”, indicating that banner and word of mouth advertising used to promote the product successfully connected the Sky brand with the product.

Brand Research and Measurability of Offline Spend

• Television advertising likely led to The AA brand being more closely associated with car insurance, as measured through analysis of internet searches and television spend. There was a 70% increase in the share of internet searches that included The AA brand with the keywords “car insurance” during a period of more than doubling television spend.
• The AA’s TV campaign was also seen to contribute to a ‘halo effect’ which benefited other AA brands, resulting in an up lift in searches for ‘aa loans’ and ‘aa breakdown cover’.

Commenting on the report findings, Heather Hopkins, VP of Research for Hitwise UK, said, “Although media consumption, and as a consequence media budgets, have shifted increasingly online, there has been very little research available to date on the ways different media interact. This landmark report will enable marketers to learn best practices for integrating offline and online campaigns.”

Stephen Taylor, Regional Vice President, Yahoo! Search and Search Marketing, Europe said, “This research validates what we’ve been advising our advertisers and agencies for years.  Campaigns are far more successful when companies integrate their online and offline advertising initiatives. This is especially true for search marketing, as search engines have become the world’s primary research tool and often the first place people go after seeing offline campaigns that are relevant to them.”

Amanda Jones, head of search at i-level said, "This is important research which shows the significant impact of brand awareness advertising and offline product promotions linked to online consumer behaviour - particularly search behaviour.  As a result, our clients at Orange, Sky and The AA will benefit from even more insightful and holistic communications planning moving forwards."

Methodology:

Hitwise compared actual offline and online spend data with its Competitive Intelligence data, including website visits, search terms, and clickstream analysis. Hitwise data is based on anonymised internet usage data of over 8.43 million UK internet users, reporting on over 800,000 websites every day.

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For further information, please contact:

Jannie Cahill, Hitwise – 020 7378 3619 jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Grant Thomas, Yahoo! Search Marketing – 020 7131 1363 grantt@yahoo-inc.com

Lorette Nettar, i-level – 07968 521 684 lorette.nettar@i-level.com

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

About Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Search Marketing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc., offers essential marketing services for companies doing business online.  The company's search-based products and tools help businesses connect with highly motivated customers. Yahoo! Search Marketing has offices across Europe, Asia, Australia and South-America. For more information, visit http://searchmarketing.yahoo.co.uk

About i-level

i-level launched in April 1999, and is Europe's largest independent online media buyer.  It is a digital marketing company, specialising in media planning and buying on the internet, email and mobile devices.  The agency's clients include the centralised account for Central Office of Information (COI), Orange, The AA, BSkyB, smile and William Hill.  The agency has over 100 full time staff, and bills c£80m.

i-level won IMAA 2005 "Agency of the Year" awarded by Marketing Week/New Media Age; appeared in Sunday Times best small companies to work for 2004, 2005 and 2006; and this year was named one of the "Hot 100" - fastest growing companies in the UK.  www.i-level.com