Why didn't we think of that? Media Post reported today (1.17.05) that BIGresearch simply ASKED 14,000 online consumers to tell them which media they find most influential for purchases across a variety of categories. Ask and you shall be told, apparently. "SIMM relies on real consumers to determine the value of each media for their purchasing decisions," said Dr. Joe Pilotta. "If consumers are not receptive to a media, blanket exposures cannot make it influential."
Pilotta claims most marketers have so far "relied upon abstract ROI and optimization models as surrogates for real consumers' media behavior." BIGresearch collaborated with renowned academics Don Schultz and Martin Block or Northwestern University's Medill School. Among other things, the system shows that "word of mouth" is more influential than advertising media for product categories such as electronics and home improvement products, while broadcast TV dominated a category like apparel products (see table below).
Media That Influencing Consumer Purchases
Electronics Apparel Grocery Home Improvement
Word Of Mouth 35.0% 26.1% 30.8% 26.4%
FSI 26.4% 27.6% 40.2% 21.7%
Broadcast TV 23.6% 19.7% 22.9% 19.0%
Internet 19.0% 11.4% 8.9% 7.9%
Email 16.7% 12.7% 8.7% 6.8%
Coupon 14.1% 16.7% 52.2% 11.2%
Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey. Derived from interviews with more than 14,000 consumers, measuring their consumption of 28 different media, which was aligned with their retail store shopping behavior, product consumption and media influence.
