Results of a study recently conducted by campaign measurement firm, Dynamic Logic, regarding the effectiveness of in-call advertising have just been released and are looking very positive for the new ad medium.
The study, which was conducted in December 2008, delivered 900,000 audio ads to targeted mobile users. The aim was to measure the effects of the direct insertion of audio ads into the call stream of certain targeted customers.
Brand awareness as well as purchase intent was found to be greatly increased through this form of advertising.
Callers in the study were put on hold while calling a popular US toll-free movie ticket line. These callers heard various 10-second ads about redbox, a company that has fully automated kiosks to rent out newly released movies at $1 per night. The ads were meant to build awareness about redbox and to encourage users to use their kiosks. Those interested in finding out more about redbox had the option to engage further or to get an SMS coupon for the same.
A survey of these callers after the call found that the in-call ads increased aided brand awareness by over 9 percentage points on average.
Among those who rented DVDs frequently, the brand awareness increased 11.9%. Among occasional DVD renters, the likelihood of renting a DVD from a redbox kiosk went up by 10.7 percentage points.
A single exposure to this form of advertising increased brand awareness significantly. Regular online campaigns were estimated to require about 10 exposures to achieve the same level of awareness.
