Consumer research on the impact of brand-initiated social media activity

July 2013

3

Demonstrate the effectiveness of social media at all

levels of the purchase funnel and show ROI

The IAB Social Media Council wanted to:

4

Weekly survey invites included in

brand feeds 4,508 interviews

Matched sample of category buyers

from research panel 800 interviews

10-minute survey on brand funnel for 8-

week period 20 Feb – 15 Apr

Data provided by brands on

investment, spend & reach

(incl. Facebook MMM data)

Social Media

Council

& 3 FMCG Partner brands

5

To appeal to a new demographic

of  ‘urban foodies’

Each of the brands had very specific objectives for their social media campaigns:

To influence product trial

& increase brand sentiment

To highlight new products

and drive purchase

offline and through their

online store

Avg. yrs old 39

And all 3 brands were reaching out to a different audience to general category buyers

7

16% 84%

39% 61%

ALL BRAND FOLLOWERS

NOT EXPOSED TO ANY OF

THE 3 BRANDS ON

SOCIAL MEDIA

Q1, Q44, Q47 Base: All respondents Control (802), Exposed (4,508)

Avg. yrs old 46 88%

33%

47%

15%

19%

7%

98%

49%

56%

28%

19%

20%

10

Our model uses a simple linear regression approach

All links between purchase funnel and exposure to social media in this report have been proved to be statistically significant

Exposure to social media

Purc

hase

funn

el

YES NO

92

68

47 41

54 55

98 91

85 79 83

90

Promptedawareness

Consideration Buy now Buy more often infuture

Product trial Recommendation

Not Exposed to Social Media Exposed to Social Media

Those  exposed  to  brands’  social  media  rate  significantly  higher across all steps of the purchase funnel

11

%  ‘y

es’

Base: All respondents Control (802), Exposed (4,508)

+6% +23% +38% +38% +29% +35% Uplift

*uplifts shown are statistically significant

This observed difference is greatest for the softer measure of brand sentiment – an effect seen across all 3 brands

14

Brand Sentiment among brand buyers (% 10/10 positive towards brand)

Base: All buyers of the brands Control: Heinz (422), Kettle (192), Twinings (228) Exposed: Heinz (1,865), Kettle (542), Twinings (1,413)

+22% loving the brand

+17% loving the brand

+19% loving the brand

Comparing the effect on likelihood to recommend by levels of engagement its clear we must value the views!

18

Base: All buyers of the brands exposed to brands on social media Exposed: Viewed (1,088), Viewed + Liked (137)

Viewed

Exposed

Not exposed

Engaged

Viewing + liking a post had thebiggest uplift

Viewing alone had the nextbiggest effect

Competitions have less effect, butare valuable in growing the audience

1

2

3

36

For every

£1invested by our brands

in social media,

£3.34 of additional sales

generated

38

What’s  the  role of social? Use social to enrich the conversation around product trial and brand loyalty

8% more trialling new products 11% more brand advocates

Where social can work for your brand:

Awareness

Use alongside other mass-reach media. E.g. to support TV

Leverage emotional strength of social to enhance sentiment

Sentiment Purchase intent

Leverage social to increase likelihood to trial and to buy

39

Use social media for a short-term boost to awareness & purchase intent and

as a longer term cost-effective insurance policy for offline media investment

40

Get back to basics - Value the views!

Focus on frequency - use daily relevant posts that consumers want to see and share Use paid-for to promote

organically popular posts

Don’t  get in the way of your fans!!

41

Use competitions that relate directly to products

Focus on frequency - it’s  relevant  daily  posts  that  consumers want

Don’t  be  afraid  to  use  attractive product shots

Create content that people want to view & share

42

Define clear objectives Set relevant  KPI’s  and measure against

them Create benchmarks and work out the

executions that work best Set monetary values to use in ROI

calculations – e.g. loyal fans, recommendations

Think ROI at all stages of your campaign strategy

With thanks to:

43

Kristin Brewe Director of Marketing & Communications

Hannah Bewley Senior Research Manager

The Internet Advertising Bureau +44 (0) 2070 506969 Kristin@iabuk.net/ Hannah@iabuk.net www.iabuk.net

For more information contact:

Ian Ralph

Director

a Creston Insight company +44 (0) 1962 835414 iralph@marketing-sciences.com www.marketing-sciences.com