Massively increased prices present many companies with enormous challenges, even in the new year, and often make budget cuts inevitable. One of the areas in which savings are often made first is advertising expenditure. This means that in the battle for budgets, it’s more important than ever for marketers to know exactly what impact their campaigns deliver. The ‘Medienpanel by Burda’ furnishes such evidence. In an interview, Tanja Seiter, Director Media Research at Burda’s market research unit Media Market Insights (MMI), tells us how exactly advertising effectiveness is analysed with the help of Burda’s own market research panel, what added value it offers and what innovations she and her team are working on.
What is the Medienpanel by Burda?
This is the name of our panel for media and advertising effectiveness research at Burda. We developed the ‘Medienpanel by Burda’ in 2019 together with BCN and with the support of today’s BurdaVerlag in order to analyse the impact of advertising campaigns as well as the attention-grabbing power of individual advertisements. To do this, we survey people who regularly read or use our media and are thereby in contact with the advertising media to be analysed. These specific target groups would usually not be able to be found via external panels accessible on the market. We, on the other hand, are able advertise the registration for our panel directly in our magazines and on our websites – and it works really well! On top of that, we save a significant amount on costs. We don’t have to pay large sums for any external services, instead, we operate completely autonomously and carry out all the steps ourselves in house: everything from creating the questionnaire and doing the programming for it to performing statistical evaluation and analysis, to presenting the results.
What content can be analysed with the help of the panel?
The main thing the panel does is measure the effect of advertising campaigns in our titles. This involves things such as how well consumers remember a campaign or how the affinity for or willingness to buy a brand changes after coming into contact with the campaign. We also use what are called ‘creative tests’ to analyse how the design and creativity of advertising campaigns are assessed – because for an advertising campaign to be successful, it’s still essential that the advertising media used is appealing and attention-grabbing, i.e., that it encourages a purchase or other desired actions. But we can also use the panel to carry out surveys on topics that are relevant for our advertising customers or brands. From daily oral hygiene to the importance of healthy household textiles, to attitudes towards cosmetic procedures, we have already done surveys on the widest variety of topics.
What leads to a panel-led analysis?
Advertising clients usually approach us through their sales colleagues at BCN or through their media agency and ask about the possibility of tracking or other analysis methods concerning their advertising campaign. When we receive this kind of request, the first step we take is to look at the media strategy for the campaign in question. Doing this is crucial in order to be able to assess whether campaign tracking is even possible at all or whether another survey method has to be used if the advertising budget is too small – because if a campaign barely achieves any reach and the number of average contacts is extremely low, technically speaking, traditional campaign tracking is practically unfeasible. We then present our findings directly to the client and the media agency. Using these findings as a basis, we work together to draw conclusions for the next advertisements or campaigns.
Who benefits from the panel’s insights?
We use our media panel to meet the market’s demand for ‘proof of effectiveness’. In times of dwindling advertising budgets and increasing fragmentation of the media landscape, our advertising clients want security. They want to see how successfully their money is being used. Does the advertisement bring the desired success? Are the selected media genres and titles suitable? What can be optimised? Our analyses make it possible to offer comprehensive advice about these questions. The bottom line is that all parties involved benefit from this: BCN and BurdaVerlag, the advertising clients and the agencies.
What has happened since the panel was introduced? What’s new?
We are constantly working on developing the panel further. This year, we plan to gather insights on DOOH (digital out-of-home) advertising, among other things, since BCN has also been marketing this genre for some time. By the same token, there should be quite a bit happening with technical possibilities in 2023: we want to make it possible to carry out eye-tracking studies because they offer great added value for researching the effectiveness of advertisements. A special highlight is that Klambt Media Group has also decided to join our panel. Therefore from now on, we will also be able to include titles from this BCN client in our research. And our panel is growing steadily: we now have almost 11,000 participants.