DoubleClick Survey Finds Online Advertising to Be an Effective Means to Influence Word of Mouth.Study Examines the Role Media Play in How "Influencers" Make Purchase Decisions NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- DoubleClick For the computer term, see double-click. DoubleClick is a company that develops and provides Internet ad serving services. Its clients include agencies, marketers (Universal McCann Interactive, AKQA etc. Inc., the premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, today announced the results of a study centered on determining how companies can focus marketing investments to impact the role "word of mouth" plays in purchase decisions. The study, titled "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth," is part of a series of reports based on DoubleClick's Touchpoints IV survey of online consumers. The research identified among the survey respondents In the context of marketing research, a representative sample drawn from a larger population of people from whom information is collected and used to develop or confirm marketing strategy. a segment deemed to be "influencers" and examined how this key segment reaches purchase decisions. To examine the activity of influencers, DoubleClick asked questions to identify more than 1,000 influencers among the 6,000-plus Touchpoints respondents: active networkers, subject matter experts, bloggers, and online community participants. The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey results revealed that influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites, as a source of further learning about purchase decisions. Nineteen percent of influencers cited web advertising as a source of information when they were researching a purchase, compared to 8 percent among the remainder of the sample. Both segments cited websites as their top source of research when they are shopping, but influencers clearly rely more on the web than non-influencers, with 40 percent of influencers citing websites for this purpose versus 31 percent of non-influencers.1 Some other key findings of the study include the following: * Influencers are active consumers of all media, especially the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the . Asked about a range of different types of media, influencers spent more time reading newspapers and magazines, watching TV and especially using the Internet. Twenty-three percent of non-influencers said that they spent five or more hours a day online, compared to 39 percent of influencers. * Influencers pay close attention to advertising, positively and negatively. Compared to non-influencers, influencers were more likely to take some actions to limit or control their exposure to advertising, such as the use of digital video recorders See DVR. to fast-forward through TV ads or the use of a pop-up blocker to control their web experience. At the same time, they were more apt to agree with positive statements about advertising, such as 76 percent agreeing that they are likely to pay attention to advertising when they are shopping for relevant products, compared to 63 percent of non-influencers. Influencers were also much more likely do Internet research This article is about using the Internet for research; for the field of research about the Internet, see Internet studies. Internet research is the practice of using the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, for research. as a result of ads they saw in traditional media, to talk about ads of interest to their friends, and to acknowledge that ads often contain valuable product information, among other attitudes. * Influencers embrace emerging media. Influencers are seeing the impact of emerging media such as video, blogs and messaging, among others: * 57 percent of influencers say they watch video online today, compared to 40 percent of non-influencers * 44 percent read blogs compared to 28 percent of non-influencers * 36 percent access the web on handheld devices compared to 21 percent of non-influencers "There has been a lot of research to establish that a small segment of people have disproportionate dis·pro·por·tion·ate adj. Out of proportion, as in size, shape, or amount. dis  pro·por influence on how the rest of us
- their friends, family, and co-workers - make purchase decisions,"
said Rick Bruner Rick E. Bruner is a media researcher and blogger. He is Research Director of DoubleClick, a provider of interactive advertising software. He began his career as a journalist. , DoubleClick's director of research and industry
relations. "So, if the question is how can companies spend their
marketing dollars to impact word of mouth, the answer is to reach those
influencers though advertising. Influencers are media gurus Noun 1. media guru - someone who advises about the use of communication mediamedia consultant adviser, advisor, consultant - an expert who gives advice; "an adviser helped students select their courses"; "the United States sent military advisors to Guatemala" and they pay attention to advertising, especially online and in emerging media platforms." The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey also examined how influencers arrived at purchase decisions for different product categories. The results show that the patterns in how influencers and non-influencers shop vary from one type of product to another. For example: * Overall, car buyers consider websites the most valuable source of further learning during the shopping process, ahead even of the dealership. However, influencers were more likely to cite websites as a factor by eight percentage points compared to non-influencers. * Among air travelers, considerably more influencers cited the importance of web ads (24 percent) than TV ads (13 percent). For non-influencers, it was the opposite, with more citing the importance to TV ads (21 percent) than web ads (19 percent). Key factors marketers should keep in mind when developing their digital marketing campaigns to influence the influencers: * Designing ads to be rich in product detail, targeted to the consideration phase of purchasing, can have an echo effect by appealing most to the small segment of customers who in turn have a greater influence on the rest of the public. In this way, marketers are not only advertising to prospects, but through these influencers to a wider audience. * Consumers shop in different ways for different types of products, and the behavior of influencers also differs in those segments. Marketers that succeed in finding the influencers for their companies and niches should consider investing in original customer research to tailor A tailor is a person whose occupation is to sew menswear style jackets and the skirts or trousers that go with them. Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor marketing programs accordingly. * When building a marketing campaign aiming to reach influencers to tap the potential of word of mouth, digital media should be a critical part of the plan. Emerging media platforms like online video, mobile web content and blogs are highly concentrated with influencers. The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey is available for free download To receive a file transmitted over a network. In any communications session, "download" means receive, and "upload" means send. The download/upload often implies a big/little scenario, in which data is being downloaded from the "big" server into the "little" user's computer. at: http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge. Methodology The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV consumer survey was fielded in July 2006 and was managed with help from ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). Research. Survey respondents were solicited from eReward's opt-in panel of research participants, which is normalized to reflect the Internet-using population in the U.S. A total of 6,121 adult (18 years old and older) Internet users Internet user n → internauta m/f Internet user Internet n → internaute m/f completed the survey. Respondents are representative of the population of Internet-using adults in this country. DoubleClick identified a subset A group of commands or functions that do not include all the capabilities of the original specification. Software or hardware components designed for the subset will also work with the original. of the overall sample, 1,041 respondents (17percent), as influencers. Those respondents answered a set of questions specifically targeting the behaviors, activities, and attitudes of influencers. The survey asked respondents about their purchases in the previous 12 months within the following 15 categories: automotive, banking, credit cards, investments, mortgages and loans, air travel, hotels, rental cars, telecommunications service In telecommunication, the term telecommunications service has the following meanings: 1. Any service provided by a telecommunication provider. 2. plans, consumer packaged goods Noun 1. packaged goods - groceries that are packaged for sale foodstuff, grocery - (usually plural) consumer goods sold by a grocer plural, plural form - the form of a word that is used to denote more than one (personal care and household care products), apparel, consumer electronics, housewares house·wares pl.n. Cooking utensils, dishes, and other small articles used in a household, especially in the kitchen. and furniture, movie tickets, and prescription drugs prescription drug Prescription medication Pharmacology An FDA-approved drug which must, by federal law or regulation, be dispensed only pursuant to a prescription–eg, finished dose form and active ingredients subject to the provisos of the Federal Food, Drug, . Further details about the methodology are available within the study itself, which is free for download at http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge About DoubleClick DoubleClick provides technology and services that empower empower verb To encourage or provide a person with the means or information to become involved in solving his/her own problems marketers, agencies and web publishers to work together successfully and profit from their digital marketing investments. Our focus on innovation, reliability and insight enables clients to improve productivity and results. Since 1996, DoubleClick has empowered the original thinkers and leaders in the digital advertising industry to deliver on the promise of the rich possibilities of our medium. Today, the company's DART and Performics divisions power the online advertising marketplace. Tomorrow, we will continue to enable clients to profit from opportunities across all digital advertising channels as consumers worldwide embrace them. DoubleClick has global headquarters in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. and maintains 21 offices around the world to serve its more than 1500 clients. 1 All of the survey respondents were Internet users, as the study was fielded online, but the types of purchases being asked about could occur in offline as well as online channels. Respondents were asked to focus on one of 15 different types of products, ranging from automobiles, mortgages and plane flights to movie tickets, clothing and household cleaners. The survey panel used reflected normal distributions of the U.S. Internet-using population. |
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