Lotame Discovers “Sweet Spot” For Promoting Entertainment by Measuring Exposure to Online Ads

Intent to View Climbs Steadily until 76 Seconds of Exposure and then Falls Off

NEW YORK – Lotame, a provider of data-driven techniques to improve the targeting, delivery and performance of online advertising, revealed results of a recent study of the effect of exposure to a campaign on a person’s intent to view an entertainment offering. The study revealed a “bell curve” in the correlation of intent to view and time spent viewing ads for the offering. This effect was noted on a per-ad and per-campaign basis, indicating that advertising to any person increases the likelihood that he or she intends to watch – but only to a point – after which likelihood actually decreases.

The study, conducted on live digital campaigns for a variety of entertainment offerings from December 2008 to March 2009, showed that a measurable increase in a person’s intent to view begins at 17 seconds over the course of a campaign, peaks at 76 seconds and significantly degrades after 225 seconds. For any single ad, impact is felt after 2.4 seconds, reaches its peak at 40 seconds and degrades after 113 seconds.

“This is the first data I know of that demonstrates under exposure and over exposure in such clearly implementable terms,” said Scott Hoffman, CMO of Lotame. “By focusing budgets on bringing a well targeted audience into the ‘sweet spot’ of exposure, entertainment-industry advertisers can measurably improve their return, freeing up budget to reach more people or realize savings. This information gives marketers the type of accountability and optimization opportunities they are used to on the Internet without wholly relying on the small percentage of the internet audience that actually click on ads.”

For the purposes of this study, ads were determined to be “viewed” when at least half of the ad was viewable and the browser was in active use. Exposure was measured by Lotame’s Time Spent technology, which allows advertisers to design campaigns around time-based metrics. “Intent to view” was determined by individual surveys conducted by Lotame partner Vizu. Vizu’s Ad CatalystSM was designed to increase brand marketers’ confidence in online advertising.

In order to accurately measure the impact of the time spent with an ad, Lotame’s Exposure Tracker technology counts the time that a user actually spends viewing an ad without counting time when the ad is obscured, minimized or scrolled out of view. By accurately monitoring and combining the time each user spends with the ad in plain sight, Lotame can measure the actual impact on the desired audience. In this way, Time Spent removes the single biggest flaw of traditional display advertising – the fact that an “impression” may not make any impression at all.

Lotame’s Crowd Control platform enables brands to target consumers based on interests that have been actively and recently demonstrated through social Web activity such as blogging, uploading pictures, commenting, watching a video, etc. Lotame then factors in multiple data points including age, gender and frequency – all completely anonymous – to create a robust stable of user profiles that enable brands to target their messages to engaged consumers. In addition, Lotame can measure the impact of every campaign by gauging the increase in social activity on the subject of the campaign, demonstrating that the message was received and internalized by the defined audience.

About Lotame

Since 2007, Lotame has improved the delivery and performance of online advertising through its unique data driven ad targeting platform. Lotame’s patented Crowd Control technology collects, organizes, and employs a rich array of anonymous data sources, including powerful new categories of social data reflecting consumer interests and behaviors within social networks. Crowd Control allows marketers and publishers to define and communicate with target users, forgoing dated targeting techniques based solely on page content. Lotame’s Ad Co-Op, a total solution for brand advertisers, addresses custom-designed consumer audiences. Lotame experts design audiences for Marketers using Crowd Control, manage ad delivery, and measure campaign effectiveness based on advanced tools that take advantage of vast amounts of data from a wide variety of sources. Lotame’s Stadium platform comes in three versions specially designed for agencies, publishers and ad networks, providing direct access to Crowd Control. Stadium enables companies to apply a wide variety of data to advertising decisions including anonymous user data, publisher statistics and third party data sources. Lotame is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). Please visit www.lotame.com