What is Passive Ad Measurement?

The story behind Lewers + Coles ESOMAR Global Research Effectiveness Award 

It is a maxim of marketing that half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but nobody knows which half. 

This was traditionally tolerated only because there was no effective way to measure the impact of an ad on the target audience’s behaviour. But now in the digital era, there has been growing demand from marketers to have greater clarity on what impact traditional above-the-line media – TV, radio and outdoor – are having on spend. It’s a particularly relevant concern for retail campaigns where the goal is to drive sales, rather than build brands. 

Lewers are experts in ad and brand measurement, we have been collaborating with some of the largest advertisers in Australia  to measure the impact of their ad and brand efforts over a 14 year period since Lewers was founded and we have always looked for ways to innovate and improve. 

As a part of this quest for innovation and improvement we began working with a tech partner three years ago to bring together their technology with our ad and brand knowledge to develop a new passive methodology.  

It is an approach which has now been refined over 3 years and 50 campaigns. 

The opt-in panel of approx. 5,000 Australians who have downloaded the app matches the audio fingerprint of each campaign creative against ambient sound captured via their mobile phones. The app also detects locations so can accurately measure footfall. The technology and panel are GDPR compliant. 

The technology is sophisticated enough to identify unique creatives across different channels i.e. comparing a 15 sec TV ad vs a 10 sec Radio ad vs Cinema etc. This allows us to understand the effectiveness of each individual creative. 

For the Coles example we tested 150 creatives in Year 1 and 270 in Year 2 – across five channels and three streams. 

As well as the passively measuring exposure, we send a survey to a subgroup of the panel to measure, amongst other advertising diagnostics, how many of those exposed remembered the ad. This allowed us to determine the creative cut-through, fundamental to disentangle the creative vs media conversation.  

Having access to geo-location, and the coordinates of every client and competitor store, we are also able to determine the effect of both channel and creative on footfall for the whole category. 

By combining this innovative approach with our expertise in ad and brand measurement here is a small sample of what we can uncover: 

Transparency about Channel’s Role 

What channels are achieving greatest efficiency (reach and frequency for cost)? 

Where are the opportunities to increase investment in channels to achieve greater efficiency? 

Impact

• What channels are motivating the greatest store visitation and brand impact? 
• Where are the opportunities to increase investment in channels to achieve greater impact? 

Identifying the Role of Creative 

• To what extent does the creative cut through (exposure vs recall)? 
• What aspects of the creative could be improved for better cut through? 

The insight can be immediately applied to save on wasted ad spend with the cost of the research being paid back many times over through reduced media spend, whilst matching competitors on key performance indicators. 

If you would like to know more, please contact Alberto Fernandez, Executive Director, [email protected]