Dynamic Logic uncovers the top performing online campaigns and shares what they have in common.

Dynamic Logic recently announced the most effective online advertising campaigns, based on research that evaluated how well each campaign achieved its branding objectives. Reviewing the campaigns measured in the United States during 2006, we determined the top overall campaigns, which successfully generated the greatest branding impact. 

Top U.S. campaigns
The top campaigns were led by CPG products, including four Kraft campaigns: Oreo, Honey Bunches of Oats, Kraft Singles and Crystal Light On-the-Go. Other brands that also achieved high scores were BMW, Dove, McDonald's and Ray-Ban. Online Ad Awareness scores for these campaigns ranged from 18 to 43 percentage-point increases after exposure to online advertising. The ads were also highly persuasive, generating the highest scores in Brand Favorability and Purchase Intent. 

The advertising campaigns included a combination of ad formats including rich media elements that captured visitors' attention, but did not disrupt their experience enough to have a negative impact on the brands. The top performing campaigns tended to find the right balance between grabbing and holding people's attention and having a positive effect without harming their user experience.

Many of the top online campaigns were well integrated with their offline campaigns.

The value of video
Interestingly, most of these campaigns utilized some form of video ads as part of their online campaign. Previous Dynamic Logic research has shown that video ads can provide a successful format to communicate to consumers. Many of the video ads appearing among the top campaigns happened to be repurposed TV spots that were adapted for online, and also implemented a variety of video formats, including pre-roll, in-banner and interstitial ads.

Companion units were placed near the video, allowing viewers to interact with the ads and maintaining constant brand presence while the videos were playing. Placing repurposed TV spots may not be the best way to take advantage of video ads for the online medium; however, early indicators show that marketers should at least be looking at the web as a way to get more mileage from their TV investment. They should consider exploring video elements that maximize the uniqueness of the web, engaging viewers and allowing them to interact with the brand. 

These campaigns illustrate smart media strategy and clever creativity, providing some excellent examples of online advertising that is working well. They also illustrate some guidelines in creating successful online brand advertising that other marketers may be able to learn from and apply. Some best practices that can be gleaned from the top performing campaigns:

• Keep the message simple. Don't try to convey too many messages with your online advertising
• Be sure the brand is intrinsically linked to the creative assets
• The online campaign should be synergistic with the offline campaign
• For products, make the product shot the "hero" of the ad. Showing the prepared product or people using the product helps to demonstrate its benefits and also grabs viewers' attention
• Leverage the unique capabilities of the internet, such an interaction, layered roll-over units and precise targeting.

The research was conducted using AdIndex while each campaign was running live across the websites that made up the actual media plan. Comparing people who were exposed to the ads to those who were not, we were able to quantify the impact as a result of online advertising exposure. The survey results were uploaded into MarketNorms, Dynamic Logic's online advertising effectiveness database, thus allowing us to determine which campaigns performed best across key criteria. These campaigns were the most noticed, generating the highest Online Ad Awareness scores after exposure to the online campaign; they resulted in positive increases in awareness of the brand or product being advertised and were also highly persuasive. 

Christina Goodman is director of global marketing & business development at Dynamic Logic, A Millward Brown Company. Read full bio.