NewMediaMetrics Study Says Ad Buys Should Be Based on Consumers' Emotional Attachment

By John Consoli -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/21/2012 2:18:46 PM

Reaching the right consumers with ad messages in the increasingly fragmented media world is becoming even more of a challenge for media planners and their advertiser clients, especially when they base their buys only on age demographics.

That's one of many conclusions buyers can draw from the fifth annual NewMediaMetrics Emotional Attachment Index. NewMediaMetrics, a brand strategy company founded in 2004 by Gary Reisman and Denise Larson, works with agencies and advertisers to determine consumers' emotional attachment to brands and media platforms. And P&G, Wal-Mart and Target are among the clients that have used the Index to help increase sales and launch new products.

NMM's 360 Cross-Platform Emotional Attachment Study was first conducted in 2008. This year's findings offer some fascinating nuggets: programming services such as Netflix and Hulu are gaining significant ground on broadcast and cable networks as a source of viewing; and tablets showed the most dramatic increase in emotional attachment among all media platforms with a 59% increase in 2012.

Reisman spent some time discussing the value that the Emotional Attachment Index and Study holds for advertisers and agencies, while also citing some fascinating data from the latest study.

In a nutshell, what does NewMediaMetrics offer to its agency and advertiser clients?
We help marketers leverage emotional attachment to their brands or to media platforms so they can increase their return on investment. The marketplace is so complex today for consumers and there are so many different products out there and so many different media outlets to get information from. We work with clients on a customized and proprietary basis. We have a brand index of 360 brands in 45 different categories, and for each we measure the emotional attachment linking those brands to a particular TV series or to 14 different media platforms that include 60 TV networks, 150 Internet sites, more than 100 print titles, outdoor, mobile and others. One of the things we do is correlation between media platforms and brands.

Why is emotional attachment to a brand or network so important?
Today, media buyers are chasing their tails when they buy just impressions based on age demographics. They need to buy based on why people are buying their clients' product and which people are emotionally attached to each brand and media outlet. Then they can leverage their buys and improve their clients' return on investment. Emotional attachment is a unique and effective way to do it.

So what do you tell your clients?
We stress that emotional attachment drives consumer consumption. Our advice to marketers is to stop the madness: Stop buying simple impressions. Today, they are meaningless. The home run for marketers is to find out what products and what media a particular consumer is emotionally attached to and go after those consumers in a more targeted way.

Why is emotional attachment so important?
Emotional attachment to a brand is a solid predictor of purchase behavior. If consumers are emotionally attached to a brand, they are two-and-a half times as likely to pay attention to an ad for that brand. And consumers are 40% more likely to pay attention to media they are emotionally attached to. And consumers who are both emotionally attached to a brand and emotionally attached to a media outlet that brand is advertised on are three times more likely to consider buying that brand.

What role does social media play in the emotional attachment arena?
People who are emotional attached to social chatter are 43% more likely to tell their friends and family about products and services they like. They are super advocates of the brands they are attached to.

So what should be the goal of a marketer?
The challenge for marketers is to tap into the media properties and content that are most aligned with their brand's customers. For example, if the consumers who are highly emotionally attached to Hulu or Netflix are also highly emotionally attached to Burger King, it would stand to reason that a portion of Burger King's media dollars should be allocated to those platforms. There are also different levels of emotional attachment and that can also be a factor.

Feeling the Numbers

Here are just a few of the findings in the latest 360 Cross-Platform Emotional Attachment Study. In total, it is a myriad of data with a virtually unlimited number of combinations and correlations between media platforms and brands.

• The only media platform to decline in emotional attachment among consumers was AOL, with the favorable emotional attachment to its homepage falling from 21% to 11%. Other indications that AOL is falling out of favor with consumers are that emotional attachment to AOL email dropped 61% in 2012 and emotional attachment to AOL instant messaging fell by 30%. The lone bright spot was for AOL's Huffington Post, which rose 3% in attachment from consumers.

• Google Search remains the single most emotionally appealing media property among the nearly 400 measured in the study.

• Netflix, with 49% emotional attachment among 18-49 year olds, was solidly ahead of Hulu, even though Hulu's EA index rose 4.5% in 2012.

• Attachment to Facebook, although still strong, dropped slightly in 2011, with a 6% decline among adults 18-49. The data for the study was collected prior to the Facebook IPO.

• The top three TV networks among 18-49-year-olds in regard to emotional attachment were, in order, ABC, CBS and Discovery.

• Among females 18-34 who are highly emotionally attached to Pampers, ABC gets 17% more high-value Pampers buyers than NBC.

• TLC has 31% more high-value Pampers buyers than Lifetime.

• Cosmopolitan magazine has 33% more high-value Pampers buyers than Bravo.

• Among adults 25-54 who are highly emotionally attached to BMW, the network they are most emotionally attached to is ESPN, followed by Fox and NBC.

• Fox scores 15% higher than CBS among adults 25-54 with a high BMW EA index.

• Time magazine has the largest percentage of high-value BMW buyers as readers; Time also has 13% more high-value BMW buyers than CNBC.

The combinations for numbers are endless and can be tailored to each individual advertisers and brand. Here are some brand correlations to TV networks and websites by percentage of emotionally attached viewers:

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to ABC network are also 73% emotionally attached to Pearl Vision, 67.6% emotionally attached to United Airlines and 63.6% emotionally attached to Travelers Insurance.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to CBS are also 59.3% emotionally attached to Volkswagen.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to Discovery are also 75.5% emotionally attached to Westin Hotels and 58.3% emotionally attached to Hotels.com and 56.5% attached to Travelocity.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to Hulu are also 61.8% emotionally attached to Embassy Suites and 56.2% attached to Sheraton.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to Netflix are also 80.5% highly attached to Uniqlo and 62.3% attached to Motorola Razr.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to Google Search are also 78.8% highly attached to Jaguar.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to Facebook are also 67.1% highly attached to Johnnie Walker and 66.4% highly attached to American Airlines.

• Consumers highly emotionally attached to the AOL home page are also 46.2% highly attached to HSBC and 37.4% attached to Citibank.

(The data collected by NMM was based on surveys conducted with 3,500 consumers age 13-54 to gauge their emotional attachment.)