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Yahoo's Accountability. "We keep hearing that accountability is a key criteria marketers look at," says Yahoo's Blake Chandlee, explaining the genesis of Consumer Direct, as quoted by Bob Tedeschi in The New York Times. Consumer Direct is a new program, "run in tandem with ACNielsen's Homescan unit" that enables Yahoo's advertisers to track the extent to which online advertising affects offline sales. The way it works is, approximately 19,000 consumer volunteers let Yahoo track their online surfing behavior and then report to Homescan their off-line purchasing patterns. As such, Consumer Direct effectively quantifies "the sales bump" produced by online advertising -- "something television, newspaper and radio companies can rarely do."
"This is pretty darn cool," says Forrester's Charlene Li, about Consumer Direct. Pepsi's John W. Vail is among those who tends to agree: "Just having the ability to get a read on sales was a tremendous leap forward," he says, adding that a Pepsi test of Consumer Direct did indeed yield "a sales volume lift" (he didn't say how much). Perhaps even more important, Mr. Vail suggests, is that the online approach provides his brand with "a broader national footprint" with which to test ad effectiveness than do traditional tests employing small-market cable TV. He says he sees potential for future tests "based on more defined consumption patterns and model customers ... So if we want to target customers who are in the diet market versus sugared cola, versus noncarbs, we can."
That it's Pepsi getting so excited over online advertising is pretty darn noteworthy in itself: "Unlike automakers, banks and movie studios, makers of laundry detergent, soft drinks and toothpaste have proved largely internet-averse, spending 1.5 percent or less of their total advertising budgets online." In part that's because the wildly popular "search-based approach" offered by Google holds little appeal, since "consumers do not flock to search engines to get more information on, say, toilet paper." Homescan's Robert Tomei, however, says it's still too early to tell whether Consumer Direct might trigger a "fundamental shift" to online advertising. As Forrester's Charlene Li points out: "Just because this works, it doesn't mean TV works less. So, the missing piece is, 'Can I cut TV and have these campaigns still be effective?" Absent an answer, says Charlene: "Some people could be loath to shift their spending."
Tim Manners, editor
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