Path to Persuasion results released by Ads24

The 'media P2P' takes consumers through seven stages: Introduction; Entertainment; Education; Information; Comparison; Persuasion and Affirmation (Retention).

Highlights

Men do not like to listen and women like to be persuaded, while youngsters want to be entertained but not educated and considered but not persuaded. Youth are multiple channel consumers.

Brad Aigner CEO of Freshly Ground Insights, the research house responsible for conducting the P2P research study, unpacked the research methodology. The findings provided a window into the way men versus women and youth versus older adults make purchasing decisions.

The studies measured the media consumption habits of men versus women when buying a car, tyres and groceries and what the most suitable mix of media is to use at various stages on the P2P and likewise with youth (under 35) versus older adults (over 35) when purchasing clothes or groceries. The study finds that different media channels and media brands play very different roles in the delivery of information to consumers.

Print media

Vimla Frank, head of marketing & business strategy at Ads24 commented, "There is a clear and differentiating role for newspapers across multiple product categories. Consumers have become conditioned to know where to find the information they need. Every media channel plays seven information delivery roles to some extent. Overall, this research points to a positive future for print media."

Linda Gibson, CEO of Ads24 says, "Newspapers all over the world might be battling to hold onto flagging circulations. Yet this research release continues to suggest that there is a significant role for newspapers across multiple product categories and that newspapers remain a powerful media channel for advertisers."

Aigner commented, "Noting that calculating return on investment (ROI) is a common business practice, the research strives to repeat the exercise for return on media investment (ROMI), unarguably the advertiser's Holy Grail." In its quest to track it down, the company conducted an extensive study into consumers' media preferences with a view to determining the different roles that media channels and media brands play in the delivery of information to consumers.

"The need for measurability and 'empirical proof' that media brands have delivered positive returns on investment is critical to media owners wanting to retain and grow their market shares. The clarity of the research result has enabled the development of a media-neutral model for the measurement of media return on investment."

Path to purchase knowledge critical

Aigner emphasises the awareness among marketers of consumers' "path to purchase" in their buying behaviour process - a path that starts with awareness and ends with a purchase decision and action.

"Ultimately, the goal of marketing is to encourage consumers to make a positive buying decision at the end of the path to purchase. The intrinsic of different media types enable planners to engage with consumers in the right place at the right time with the correct message to take them a step closer to the end of the path to purchase."

Taking a line through the research results, Aigner recommends that media planners adopt a media mix in which each channel in the mix optimises its role in the media path to persuasion. "The best media strategy is one where the media mix is integrated optimally to drive consumers through every stage of the media path to persuasion."

His analysis of the research juxtaposed on the media P2P, highlights newspapers' ability, when combined with television, to deliver incremental value at the end of the path.

Frank added, "Newspapers deliver incremental and cost-efficient value at every stage of the path to persuasion. Indeed, in every case there is a clear and differentiating role for newspapers that delivers positive media return on investment for the brand being measured."

Bryan Gibson, MD of Third Wave Media says, "P2P helps in understanding both the purchase decision-making process by category and the role each information source plays. This is the sort of research that we need."

Methodology

P2P is a qualitative survey, providing media neutral scores to guide the media selection process according to needs and objectives of varied product categories. Its research methodology consists of a qualitative, electronic (MAPI) data collection method.

A national study is conducted in four waves in June 2011, November 2011, December 2012 and April 2013 with roughly one thousand interviews, or slightly more, per wave. These samples are representative of twenty-one product category consumer profiles. The scope of the sample design was urban/peri-urban focused and quota controlled on LSM 4-10 consumers.

Respondents were selected at consumer convergence areas, demographically representative of the category as a whole, aligned with AMPS demographic profiles in six main geographical centres. The current P2P database of 4,500 respondents will yield reliable results to within a margin of error of 2% at the 95% confidence interval level.

In order to access the latest P2P research data, use the Ads24 Widget.