TOMORROW FOCUS and Comscore Announce Results of ‘Brand Advertising Online in Germany’ Study at DLD Conference

Low Click-Through Rates Lead to Under-Valuation of Online As Brand Building Channel

Munich, Germany, January 26, 2011 – TOMORROW FOCUS AG and Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) presented the results of a study showing the potential of the internet as a brand building channel at the DLD (Digital Life Design) conference in Munich. The study, building upon previous research which shows that click-through rates are extremely low across the world and have continually declined over the past few years, found that measuring campaign effectiveness using click-through rates (CTRs) alone under-values the ability of the online channel to build brands.

Key reasons why CTRs are not the right measure to evaluate online ad effectiveness are:

  • In Germany, CTRs decreased by 15 percent during 2009 and were at an average of only 0.11% in December 2009
  • In August 2010, 85 percent of German internet users did not click on any display ad during the month and the impact of online display advertising is therefore never measured for these users by CTR
  • Heavy clickers, who only accounted for 3% of the total German online population, generated 62% of all clicks
  • Heavy clickers have very different demographics and behavioural profile from the mainstream German internet audience

Commenting on the findings, Christoph Schuh, chief marketing officer of TOMORROW FOCUS AG says: “The study delivers evidence that the simple click rate as a metric for display advertising is misleading in evaluating campaign impact. The internet will still be more seen as a direct response channel if we don´t establish a new currency that is able to measure the success of advertising effects like brand lift or engagement. We at TOMORROW FOCUS are working diligently on developing new metrics and will present them in 2011.”

Display Advertising is Effective Even in the Face of Minimal Clicks on Ads
Comscore has conducted a series of ad effectiveness studies across Western Europe (Germany, UK, France, and Spain) which show that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant, positive impact on consumer behaviour:

  • Display ads lifted visitation to the advertiser’s website by 72 percent on average
  • Display ads increased the likelihood of consumers conducting a trademark search query using the advertiser’s branded terms by an average of 94 percent

“If online media is to receive its fair share of branding spend, focus must shift away from the click to new metrics that better reflect both the quality of the creative as well as the multiple ways in which online ads can build brands,” said Linda Abraham, Comscore chief marketing officer. “It is essential that we begin to provide attribution for the impact online ads deliver not only when clicked but when they are viewed by an audience, which is why more holistic measurement of online advertising effectiveness has never been more important.”

To download a free copy of the full report “Brand Advertising Online in Germany – Is the ‘click ’ the right currency for display advertising effectiveness?” in German or English, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/Advertising_Beyond_Click

About TOMORROW FOCUS
TOMORROW FOCUS AG is one of the leading internet media groups in Germany. The company is based in Munich and its shares are publicly traded on the stock exchange.

The Group’s business operations are divided into the three divisions Transactions, Advertising and Technologies:
The Transactions division includes HOLIDAYCHECK, the Group’s hotel rating and holiday/travel booking portal, and ELITEPARTNER, a premium online dating portal. The Advertising division includes TOMORROW FOCUS Media, one of the leading German online marketing providers, marketing not only partner portals, such as CHIP Online, FAZ.NET, GUTEFRAGE.NET and MEINESTADT.DE, but also the Group’s own internet portals, such as FOCUS Online, FINANZEN100, JAMEDA and NACHRICHTEN.DE. ADJUG LTD. is an online marketing provider for surplus advertising space with two online market places in the UK and Germany. The company is part of the Advertising division. Within the Technologies division, TOMORROW FOCUS TECHNOLOGIES GmbH (TFT) and CELLULAR GmbH provide comprehensive services for the stationary and mobile internet.

About DLD
DLD (Digital - Life - Design) is a global conference network on innovation, digital media, science and culture which connects business, creative and social leaders, opinion-formers and investors for crossover conversation and inspiration. Chairmen of DLD are publisher Hubert Burda and serial digital investor Yossi Vardi. DLD has been founded by Stephanie Czerny and Marcel Reichart in 2005. For more information, please visit www.dld-conference.com/.

About Comscore
Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. Comscore helps its clients better understand, leverage and profit from the rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape by providing data, analytics and on-demand software solutions for the measurement of online ads and audiences, media planning, website analytics, advertising effectiveness, copy-testing, social media, search, video, mobile, cross-media, e-commerce, and a broad variety of emerging forms of digital consumer behaviour. Comscore services, which now include the product suites of recent acquisitions Nedstat, Nexius XPlore, ARSGroup and Certifica, are used by more than 1,600 clients around the world, including global leaders such as AOL, Baidu, BBC, Best Buy, Carat, Deutsche Bank, ESPN, Facebook, France Telecom, Financial Times, Fox, Microsoft, MediaCorp, Nestle, Starcom, Terra Networks, Universal McCann, Verizon Services Group, ViaMichelin and Yahoo!. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Ayaan Mohamud
Comscore, Inc.
+ 44 (0) 203-111-1758
worldpress@comscore.com



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