The company you keep

Editor's Notes

• #2 Attention is at a premium. According to Ofcom’s Communications Report of last summer, we squeeze 11 hours and 7 minutes of media into 8 hours and 41 minutes each day. And that squeeze is even greater when it comes to young people. So in an age where there is an attention deficit, it is more vital than ever before for brands that they choose wisely how and where they communicate with people, in other words, the context for their communications. Going back to ancient Greece, they need to follow the advice of Euripides, a classical Greek tragedian, who said "Every man is like the company he is wont to keep"  In essence brands today need to take care about the company they keep. You will all understand that there is probably a benefit of placing an ad in the newsbrand environment, but so far there is no proof of that effect across all platforms. The company you keep looks at why context matters and quantifies the newsbrand context effect among the 20 million regular readers of national newsbrands
• #3 Context was a key theme at our Shift event in February, where the wonderful Rory Sutherland talked about the importance of context for advertising as well as many other areas of our lives, saying: "Context affects our decisions to a far greater degree than we realise.“ http://www.newsworks.org.uk/shift-2015-reports/reality-check
• #4 And Douglas McCabe from Enders talked about the importance of context in the light of the rise of programmatic. A lot of the discussion around this topic focuses on the negative angle, about brands appearing in dodgy environments, this is about focusing on the positive and reinforcing the belief that a positive communications context has a positive influence on the brands that take advantage of it. But there is so much more to context than just the immediate and present environment. http://www.newsworks.org.uk/shift-2015-reports/context-is-queen-the-value-of-media-environment
• #5 Particularly pertinent to the rise of programmatic
• #6 Particularly pertinent to the rise of programmatic
• #7 The importance of context is validated both in psychology and advertising research And it is key to understand that context is not just about the present but about the lead up to the advertising exposure and the way we use what we have learned to decode and shortcut the present. Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to one stimulus influences a response to another stimulus. The implication is that evaluations of the advertised brand are influenced by the ad context. Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist from UCL, explains: “The brain has evolved … to see the world in a way that proved useful in the past. It constructs what it knows by searching for useful patterns in sensory information and then associating those patterns with a past record of their behavioural relevance, and then using that information to guide behaviour. ”
• #8 Which of these orange dots is bigger? They are actually the same size. But our brain tricks us into believing that the right hand circle is bigger. The one on the right appears larger because of its framing and context. Our brains are more powerful at interpreting than our eyes The Ebbinghaus illusion is one of many examples where the visual framing of an object affects how the object is perceived. Interestingly, these illusions are perceived differently by adults and children, which provides evidence that they are context-sensitive. Because adults have higher sensitivity to context, illusions of this type fool them more often and more easily. Since children are not as context-sensitive, they are less often deceived.
• #9 And context affects behaviour too. Recent scientific research has shown that this visual misperception can effect our behaviour. For example, when choosing portion sizes of food, the bigger the plate – and the greater colour contrast with the food being eaten – the more likely we are to take a bigger portion of food - but think that it’s the same size. So bigger plates encourage over-eating! Source: Journal of Consumer Research: Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion’s Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior
• #10 The social media storm caused by the gold or blue dress shows how powerful our misinterpretations – based on the background context – can actually be. How many of you when you looked at it saw gold? How many saw blue, black and white?
• #11 The environment primes people to feel and behave in surprising waysThe environment can also influence unconscious, autonomic processes to shape how people evaluate situations. For example, the simple presence of a briefcase in a room leads people to behave more competitively than they do when there is a backpack in the room (Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, & Ross, 2004).
• #12 We are so pressed for time these days and attention is at so much of a premium, that we do take lots of shortcuts to evaluate the context in which we see things. That context helps us to determine what those objects are, even when we don’t have the full picture. What do you think this is?
• #13 And this? Our brains use the context to make sense of the object – first a hairdryer, then a drill. In fact it’s the same shape in each picture – and it’s a hairdryer.
• #14 Context is frequently used by fraudsters…trying to fools us into going with that priming instinct that we have, and it is quite an effort to learn how to unlearn past memories of who and what we can trust.
• #15 At Shift, Rory brought up the concept of target context. Let’s examine target context versus target audience. What happens when you have the same audience, different lives? Here’s a mocked-up example of the potential perils of programmatic. While Disney would never publish a Victoria’s Secret ad (at least we sincerely hope they have control of their inventory) – and we exaggerate to make the point - the perils of chasing a demographic, without thinking how they behave and think as human beings are clear. Most of us have more than one role or persona, so reducing us to a demographic, or a type, or a phrase like “woman who like luxury”, or a buying habit can lead to real disasters of context.
• #16 And here is a very up to date example. And perhaps the most dangerous tool of all is the keyword, which led all these prestigious brands to advertise on very dubious sites. We are using technology to make things easier today, but at the risk to the right and appropriate context. There have been a raft of articles on this topic in the last few weeks, with many claiming to have the answer. But the truth is, that technology designed to save time, still has dangers associated with it.
• #17 It’s important that the technology used to place ads takes note of how people judge the right context. I love this analogy…… So it is in the light of all this discussion about online context and the dangers associated with technology, there have been a number of research projects, examining the effect of context….. A recent study from Carat highlighted the fact that people limit their searches on the internet to a few trusted sites. We are learning more about how online context effects ad responses, and specifically the value of trust. Studies conducted by the AOP and the IAB VW test have clearly demonstrated that trust in newsbrand sites leads to stronger ad responses. http://www.newsworks.org.uk/Platforms/51579
• #18 A more recent Millward Brown study also found that sites with strong brand scores (including news sites) are more likely to be visited with the purpose to consume specific content, and less likely to be happened upon by search – and site brand strength leads to a better ad response .
• #19 InSkin/RAPP research research shows that quality content instils trust and context really matters, especially for re-targeted ads. People are 37% more likely to click on an ad if it’s a site that they trust. And ads served on the Independent site were 71% more likely to be rated highly than those on lesser-known enthusiast site, Catster.
• #20 InSkin/RAPP research research shows that quality content instils trust and context really matters, especially for re-targeted ads. People are 37% more likely to click on an ad if it’s a site that they trust. And ads served on the Independent site were 71% more likely to be rated highly than those on lesser-known enthusiast site, Catster.
• #21 The recent FT Halo study showed consumers are 80% more likely to associate quality and trust with established online media brands (such as newsbrands) compared with emerging media. When asked which sites a range of ads should appear in, consumers were 50% more likely to choose established media brand sites than emerging media sites. Placement in established trusted media sites also had positive implicit impact on consumer perceptions of the brands advertised
• #22 So we instinctively know that context matters. And there’s reams of academic evidence to prove that context matters, and that it’s particularly important to consider because its main effects are hidden and subconscious, so we can’t tell what’s happening at the time. We understand that the wrong context could be positively harmful – we’ve seen in real life how that works in extreme cases, such as the Twitter storm caused when some brands unwittingly placed advertising in Facebook pages that included images of extreme violence against women. And we realise that its even more important to understand what context means for brands with the increase in programmatic. But we haven’t a clear measure of the positive effects that the right context has on advertisers’ communications. And we don’t know how context works across platforms. More specifically, we don’t fully understand how the right context affects ad responses on a more implicit, subconscious level. If context can make us misinterpret colour and size without us really being aware of how our brains are tricking us, what happens to the way we process ads in different contexts? (Pub quiz example – instinctively know answer without realising how/having specific memory)
• #23 We already know that the newsbrand audience is very valuable – it’s a very big audience that is strongly engaged and uniquely influential. Our hypothesis was that the effects of ads being seen in the context of your regular newsbrand should be particularly powerful, for three key reasons. Firstly, newsbrand readers have very high levels of emotional engagement with their chosen newsbrand and attention levels are high – and that relationship is constantly being reinforced due to the frequency of reading. In the attention deficit age, could we measure the impact of highly focussed attention? Secondly, there are high levels of trust in the newsbrand they favour. We’ve already seen evidence of the effects of trust in original content sites versus aggregators and social media. Does the highly trusted newsbrand environment create a priming effect across all platforms? And finally the context in which the ads are seen is one that readers personally identify with, and that makes them feel part of a like-minded community – they see themselves as Mirror readers, or Guardian readers or Telegraph readers, for example. Readers seem very aware that placement of ads in newsbrands imbues those ads with certain values. But is this actually measurable? And how do these relationships work across the different newsbrand platforms? This project set out to discover….
• #24 Here’s the science bit…. We commissioned Conquest to carry out a major research project. We recruited a very large sample and covered a range of campaigns across different sectors – motors, retail, finance, telecoms and tech. In the first stage, for the primary sample – we gave them an online reading task and questionnaire. For important reasons which we will return to, we also had a supplementary sample – where the reading task used physical newspaper and tablet. Ads were shown in context, with editorial changing daily so we could be sure it was the brand context that was affecting responses, not a specific story. The majority of research was based on indirect and implicit questioning. It was vital to conduct the research this way, if we were to get to the subconscious context and the priming that people use to shortcut and process what they see. This was supplemented by more traditional questioning about brand consideration.
• #25 It was multiplatform, across print, tablet and computer. 8 campaigns were covered
• #34 We placed each of the ad campaigns in a range of different brand contexts, across a range of platforms, including Huffington Post and MSN, to help us determine whether evaluations of ads were affected by familiarity and emotional identification with different contexts. We then formed a non-readers group consisting of people who were unfamiliar with any of those media brands and compared their ad responses to those of regular newsbrand readers. We ensured that there were no significant differences in brand usage across all eight brands, for the non-readers and Newsbrand readers
• #36 Results have been averaged to create 3 key metrics: Brand love is a composite of 3 engagement metrics – how close people feel towards the brand, the warmth of their feelings, and the brands empathy with them. Buzz shows how much people think the brands are talked about. Consideration measures intent to purchase the next time people are in the market. We’re going to look first at the results across platforms, then for different groups of people, and finally for content There is a clear context effect for across all platforms. The average brand love score is significantly stronger for regular print readers seeing the ad in the familiar context of their own newspaper. Similarly, the level of perceived buzz around the brand is positively affected by the familiar newspaper context. The biggest increase post exposure is for Consideration – regular print readers are 16% more likely to consider choosing the advertised brands at the next buying occasion than the non-reader group. So there is clear evidence that the print context increases the impact and efficiency of brand advertising. What about other platforms? Tablets are also particularly strong for buzz – which is perhaps to be expected given the relative recency of the format. Online newsbrand sites are a really effective context for generating increased consideration among regular readers.
• #37 When you talk to people about their views of online ads, they are generally more negative. And it was no different in our study. Online ads generally scored lower as consumers feel they are more interruptive. However, average scores were raised when the ads were seen in people’s familiar newsbrand.
• #38 We are aware that showing print and tablet editions on pc screens tends to underestimate their impact – we cannot go into detail here, but we have recently collaborated in a major study with UCL and PHD – Touching is believing - examining the power of touch on people’s ad responses. Watch out for more information on that study – we are planning an event to showcase the results in the next couple of months. Suffice to say that we know that the tactile, tangible, physical experience creates a stronger ad response. So we also looked at ad responses when people read the physical paper and tablet newsbrand – and this was amongst our supplementary sample.
• #39 And the results show that the context effect increases significantly when people interact with the physical newspaper or tablet edition. There was then a sense that we were underrepresenting the full effect. So this led us to examine what the results would have been if we’d conducted the whole study using a physical reading experience for the print and tablet editions, what the results would have been if we had used all the senses. First we will look at the individual platform results. Then, given we know that many campaigns are multiplatform, we will look at the combined results
• #40 And the results show that the context effect increases significantly when people interact with the physical newspaper or tablet edition. There was then a sense that we were underrepresenting the full effect. So this led us to examine what the results would have been if we’d conducted the whole study using a physical reading experience for the print and tablet editions, what the results would have been if we had used all the senses. First we will look at the individual platform results. Then, given we know that many campaigns are multiplatform, we will look at the combined results
• #41 We can look at the projections if these results were replicated across all titles and ads researched. The impact of the newsbrand print and tablet environments on ad responses would be stronger across all measures.
• #42 So if we applied the print and tablet results from the physical test to all eight campaigns, the overall context effect for newsbrands could be as high as….. This is truly a great story for the effect of a positive context for brands.
• #43 Younger people and women tend to be more ad friendly in research conditions than older people and men
• #44 But the effect of ads being placed in the context of a familiar, trusted newsbrand starts to erode these differences. So we see that the context effect is bigger for men….
• #45 ….and older people
• #46 The good news for advertisers is that there’s a real bonus for getting the creative right. Ads which are better received by consumers in general experience an even greater context effect when seen in a familiar newsbrand environment. As part of the research our respondents scored the ads, so we were able to look at the context effect for content which people like more versus content they liked less.
• #47 Both the lowest scoring and the highest ads in our test were scored higher by regular readers – and the context effect, particularly for the consideration measure, pushes scores for the strongest creative even higher.
• #48 So if familiarity with the newsbrand context enhances ad responses, is the context effect even greater for those who have the strongest emotional relationship with their newsbrand? Newsbrand readers feel closer to their chosen title than regular readers of other media brands tested: brand closeness is over 15% higher on average than for regular Huffington Post or MSN users. But the biggest difference is in the size of the really committed loyalists group. Just over a quarter of all newsbrand readers feel extremely close to their chosen title –and as we might expect, these people with the highest emotional engagement are also the most likely to respond more positively to advertising.
• #49 So if we go back to the main results from our primary online research, these are the overall scores for regular newsbrand readers versus non-readers are as follows
• #50 As anticipated, the most emotionally committed readers are the most responsive to ads in the newsbrand context, across all platforms. Difference in Buzz doubles among people who feel really close to their newspaper, and Consideration is also 50% higher than for non-readers.
• #51 Finally, we looked at whether there was a bigger context effect if ads were placed in relevant editorial sections, compared with main news.
• #52 Readers generally welcome ad placement in relevant editorial…. But academic studies have not always shown a clear effect. Indeed cognitive dissonance – when ads seem out of place – as been found to be a bigger influence than congruency – when ads seem to fit the subject matter in some studies.
• #53 Our study found that there was no significant overall additional effect of placing ads in relevant editorial. However, there was a significant increase in one of the major brand measures, Buzz. – the feeling that people are talking about the brand a lot.
• #54 And for two sectors in particular, the increase in Buzz that was gained from being ads being placed in relevant context was particularly high.
• #56 Ads for Motors and Technology brands – which rely considerably on current talkability and favourable word of mouth, saw big benefits from placement in relevant context.
• #58 There have been many versions of the saying about the company you keep since Euripides first penned "Every man is like the company he is wont to keep"  including this traditional folk song about a very discerning pig: One evening in October, when I was far from sober To keep my feet from wandering I tried, My poor legs were all a-flutter, so I lay down in the gutter And a pig came up and lay down by my side. We sang,"Never mind the weather just as long as we're together" Till a lady passing by was heard to say, "You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses" And the pig got up and slowly walked away.