All marketers want to optimize their return on investment.

Just as consumers are now being forced to make tough choices about the goods and services they really need, marketers are taking a hard look at media allocations to determine which combination of media is going to give them the biggest bang for their advertising dollars.

To this end, MPA asked Marketing Evolution to update learning on their 2006 analysis of 20 cross-media accountability studies. Marketing Evolution added 18 additional cross-media accountability studies and went beyond analyzing effects to focus on return on investment (ROI). Their analysis offers new learning and the potential for a more results-oriented approach to media planning.

OVERVIEW

Marketing Evolution found that when analyzing ROI across the 38 studies:

• TV leads in cost efficiency for brand awareness, and the efficiency of magazines is a close second to that of TV
• Magazines generated a superior cost per impact (CPI) for brand familiarity; TV and online performed similarly at roughly double magazines’ cost per impact
• For purchase intent magazines yielded a far more efficient cost per impact than TV or online
• While each category showed a unique profile, across the individual categories studied (auto, entertainment, electronics and pharmaceuticals) the overall pattern held
• Magazines most consistently generated a favorable cost per impact throughout the purchase funnel, followed by TV

Based on the findings, Marketing Evolution recommends an important change to media planning. They advocate utilizing an “impact-based” approach that starts with allocating the most efficient medium based on impact, rather than beginning with the most efficient medium based on “eyeball exposure” (or, said more formally, “impression delivery”).

The new results reinforce Marketing Evolution’s earlier conclusions about the importance of using multiple media in the mix and the valuable role that magazines play in driving results.  (Findings from the earlier study, “Measuring Media Effectiveness,” are available at: www.magazine.org/advertising/accountability.)