Specific Media is the first to offer new eye tracking technology in the UK

Pre-testing the effectiveness of online creative to drive increased ROI for leading brands

London: 17 September 2011 – Specific Media, the digital media company, today announces the launch of a pioneering eye tracking service for evaluating online advertising in partnership with industry specialists EyeTrackShop. The pilot scheme assessed the performance of different creative campaigns for a number of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) client brands including Lynx, Barclays and Audi.

Specific Media is the first media company to pilot this groundbreaking new methodology in the UK, which uses webcam technology to analyse how users view advertising online and calculate where and for how long the participant is looking. The technology has been used by Specific Media, in collaboration with Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), the global creative agency, to reveal the dramatic difference that a choice of creative can have on consumers’ reaction to advertising.

This new methodology produces truly authentic results by observing participants in their natural browsing environment – their own home.

In total over 360 panellists were surveyed on 12 combinations of site and creative, measuring a rate of exposure, time to recognition, dwell time, fixation order and other metrics against standardised benchmarks.

The results show that choice of creative can be the difference between a display ad’s success or failure, often directly affecting how much attention the viewer pays to it. Generic content sites were used, and users were not shown the same site twice. Key findings include:

  • An average of 11% of consumer time on webpages was spent viewing advertising
  • Creative was found to significantly affect levels of interaction:
    • Exposure rate varied from 47% to 100%
    • Time to fixation varied from 1 second to 8.5 seconds
    • Advertising dwell time varied from 5% to 22.5% of total time
  • Exposure to creative was also found to have tangible impact on recall irrespective of user interaction

Ian Dowds, Specific Media’s Senior Vice President UK, said: “This is part of the next step in digital advertising. Marketers require increasingly sophisticated insight into the performance of campaigns and this pilot shows the direct impact creative can have on a campaign. Quite simply, without this new technology we wouldn’t have these insights. We’re now able to transform the way our customers work with us, enabling them to pre-test creative for visual effectiveness before rolling it out, allowing marketers to get the best ROI from their online campaigns.”

Mathias Plank, Founder & CEO of EyeTrackShop, said: “Specific Media is making use of some of our most advanced, innovative technology, and we’re confident that the benefits for advertisers will soon become apparent in an area that has been left largely unexplored. Marketers spend hundreds of thousands of pounds pre-testing creative for television, yet continue to underestimate how effective testing can be for online.”

Simeon Adams, Strategy Director of BBH, said: “Partnering with Specific Media for this study enabled us to analyse our online campaigns with more rigour than ever before. Seeing how our creative is working ‘in the wild’ can help us fine-tune for effectiveness, and what the pilot clearly showed was that online display needs the right creative for the job. Thanks to Specific Media for involving BBH, and moving the online debate from click through rates to creative engagement.”

Specific Media’s eye-tracking offering is available immediately for display, and will be available for video later this year.

About Specific Media

Specific Media is a digital media company with capabilities spanning original programming, cross-channel distribution and addressable advertising. The company connects audiences, content and brands – driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers. As people discover new ways to consume content, Specific Media creates impactful media experiences no matter where they are. www.specificmedia.co.uk

About EyeTrackShop

EyeTrackShop is the World’s First Online Eye Tracking Solution for Large Scale Online Panels. Our vision is to be the leading data collection service for implicit research. The unique EyeTrackShop platform makes eye tracking studies affordable, easy to understand and accessible for everyone.

With operations in the US, Europe and Asia, EyeTrackShop offers research agencies the opportunity to increase the value of their surveys by using eye tracking technology as part of the product range. EyeTrackShop also offers media owners, brand owners, agencies and others that want to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns and improve their communication a number of standardized studies. Contact us to get started with your study at www.eyetrackshop.com

About Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH)

Bartle Bogle Hegarty is one of the world’s most famous advertising agencies. Founded in 1982 by British ad men John Bartle, Nigel Bogle and John Hegarty, the Agency has produced campaigns for many of the world’s most illustrious brands. BBHs distinctive micro-network has offices in London, New York, Sao Paolo, Singapore, Shanghai and Mumbai and employs 900 staff worldwide. Publicis Groupe holds a minority shareholding. This year BBH London has been appointed by Unicredit, Weetabix, Alpen, Sol, Waitrose and the oldest British clothing brand Wolsey. Founder Sir John Hegarty was awarded the inaugural lifetime achievement award by the Cannes Lions Festival in June and the Agency's work for Yeo Valley won the Marketing Society Grand Prix in May.

Media Contact:
Abigail Holdaway and Phillip Dyte
Band & Brown Communications
specificmedia@bbpr.com 020 3451 9400