MEDIA & DIGITAL WHITEPAPER

DIGITAL BEHAVIOR ANALYTICS

What can search and social media data tell you about brand performance?

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Table of Contents
03 SECTION 1 | Introduction

04 SECTION 2 | From retrospective model to ongoing metrics

07 SECTION 3 | A decomposition approach to digital signals

09 SECTION 4 | Long and short-term indicators of brand health

13 SECTION 5 | Using digital signals to measure campaign performance

16 SECTION 6 | New rules and a new approach

17 CASE STUDY | Digital signals in action: Warburtons 2015 advertising launch

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 2

SECTION 1
Introduction
The amount of information we can sift from passively collected digital data is much greater than it was just
a few years ago. And, in another few years, the speed, detail and volume of digital behavioral signals will be
even greater.

The range of information now available is both inspiring and intimidating to researchers and marketers.
Consumer sentiment is captured on websites and social media channels. Exposure to advertising is recorded
by set-top boxes, digital tags, and mobile devices. And consumer purchases, both on and offline, are tracked
through store loyalty cards and e-commerce programs.

While all of this new data presents marketers and

researches with great opportunities, it also brings
Fundamentally, brand planning
renewed risk and uncertainty. How we use this data for
insight and decision-making is no longer a hypothetical
has changed from an
question: marketers are investing heavily in tools that environment that was data poor
promise to put this data to work. Digital and social data is to one that is data rich.
being widely used to make brand and advertising investment
decisions. Its clear that many of these tools and methods lack the rigor needed to be useful guides to long-
term brand performance. The choice isnt to use or not to use digital signals its between using them well
and using them poorly.

Fundamentally, brand planning has changed from an environment that was data poor to one that is data
rich. This creates challenges that didnt previously exist. Millward Brown believes that marketers who manage
the transition to data-rich brand planning will win by being able to strategically connect different data assets
and understand the analytic tools to deploy against objectives. They will know which new data to add to
traditional measures and which data tells them things they already know.

The challenge for marketers is to use these digital data sources to generate valuable insight to help grow their
brands. The challenge for researchers is to identify the reliable signals in the data to generate the valuable
insight. To do this effectively, researchers need to understand the relationships between new data sources
and known equity and sales metrics not in one-off individual cases but through repeated testing across
brands and categories to build up a set of generalized patterns to reliably guide future decisions.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 3

SECTION 2
From retrospective model to ongoing
metrics
Predictive models are brand-specific
Its not surprising that the digital signals from consumer conversation and interest can be predictive of
a brands performance. With the variety and breadth of different trackable behaviors it would be more
concerning if they werent. Millward Browns expert analytics group has run numerous custom models for
leading brands to investigate the links between themes around sentiment in digital conversation, web traffic
data, and search patterns to shifts in brand image, equity and sales. But we have consistently and repeatedly
seen that there is no consistency across categories or even across brands in the same category which
metrics are most meaningful or most important in predicting equity or sales. Digital data doesnt come with
a magic wand that will tell you exactly how your brand is doing or what is likely to happen in the future.
Sentiment in conversation may matter hugely for some brands but for others it may indicate nothing more
than an accidental association with a passing meme.

Based on 40 years of research into what makes strong brands, this is exactly what we would expect. We
know the same things arent equally important to all brands, even within a category. And the things that are
important are not necessarily equally likely to manifest in measurable digital behaviors or conversation for
every type of product. The idea of reliability might be equally important to both an airline and an antibacterial
wipe, but we wouldnt expect peoples opinion of them to be equally voiced on social media.

This kind of modeling can be extremely valuable for brand owners. It can yield deep insights into the drivers
of equity and performance for a brand, and highlight vital areas that brands may need to address or want
to build on. But this modeling should be done, and kept, at the level of individual brands within individual
markets. If brands within the same category show very different relationships between themes and outcomes,
trying to generalize across multiple categories and markets is sure to be a wasted effort.

Retrospective models arent designed to be forward-looking

The brand-specific nature of the models and the amount of proprietary data required to build them present
obvious issues in terms of expense and practicality of application to competitor brands. But the bigger
barrier to translating these kinds of models into scalable research tools is that even for the brand in question
they only represent the state of play at a given point in time. They are, by definition, backward-looking, and
quantify relationships over a past period of time. They model what has been important, and what did translate
into end results not what might happen in the future.

This kind of retrospective modeling assumes the relationships observed within the modeling period are the
truth, and they dont allow for changes outside of those parameters. If a model indicates that conversation

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 4

about value has been a key driver of equity for a brand in the past, it is reasonable to expect that we should
be able to track this conversation going forward, and be confident that it will likely be a marker of equity
increase in the future. And we can to a point. As long as nothing happens to shift consumers perceptions of
the brand or the type of conversations they have about it, then this relationship should hold true.

The problem is that the vast majority of brand activity is

specifically designed to try and change what people think
about a brand. So any successful brand activity, if it does
There is a risk in using
what its meant to do, is likely to change the conversation backward-looking models as a
around the brand in the short term. And if it is successfully forward-facing measurement
impacting the image of the brand in peoples minds, there is framework. The more impactful
a high likelihood of this affecting what is driving the brands
equity - a situation that retrospective models cannot cope
your brand activity, the faster
with. There is a risk in using backward-looking models it renders said measurement
as a forward-facing measurement framework. The more framework obsolete!
impactful your brand activity, the faster it renders said
measurement framework obsolete!

We need generalizable rules with real-world meaning

Brand-specific models are costly to produce, and theyre locked to specific points in time. Marketers need
a better way to approach these digital signals one that finds generalizable patterns in signals that arent
brand-specific, and dont rely on a brands image remaining stable over time. To make best use of this data,
we need to know what the movements in it really mean - in general, not in one-off cases. For marketers to
trust this data to make decisions, they need the reassurance that what they are seeing is reliable, and be able
to link it back to real-world impacts.

Millward Brown has made a significant investment in a year-long global research and development initiative to
determine which passively observed and digitally measured data assets show meaningful relationships with
brand health and campaign performance not just for individual brands but across multiple categories and
markets.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 5

Millward Browns year-long global R&D initiative
8 CATEGORIES 23 BRANDS 50+ SURVEY BASED METRICS

5 MARKETS 2-5 YEARS

BRAZIL MEXICO USA UK INDIA OF BRAND PERFORMANCE AND SALES DATA

100+ DIGITAL SIGNALS 6,000+ MODELS & ANALYSES

RUN USING BOOLEAN CLASSIFICATION,

INCLUDED FROM WEB TRAFFIC, SEARCH
ADVANCED MACHINE LEARNING AND DYNAMIC
VOLUME, SOCIAL LISTENING PLATFORMS
LINEAR REGRESSIONS

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

Over the course of this initiative, Millward Brown identified some general principles for how digital signals like
social and search respond to brand activity, and how they can be used to predict brand performance. Here
we present some of the general principles that we have found about how digital signals relate to meaningful
advertising and brand metrics, and to which signals marketers should really be paying attention.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 6

SECTION 3
A decomposition approach to digital
signals
Like people, digital signals respond to multiple influences, and movements in any one signal will not always
mean the same thing. Consider a signal like the overall level of web searches for a brand over a period of
time. It is obvious that various different factors drive daily or weekly search volumes, for example, the brands
long-term level of salience and consumer interest; specific news events concerning the brand; the brands
advertising and marketing campaigns; or short-term brand promotions.

The same is true of the levels of social buzz around the same brand. We know intuitively that in any given
week, the proportion of search volume that is attributable to each of these factors will vary. We would expect
to see a baseline level of search driven by the overall state of a brands health as well as spikes or waves
of search volume caused by campaigns, good and bad news, flash sales, and so on. All of these influences
combine within the same signal to create a combination of long-term trends and short-term volatility.

By applying dynamic linear modeling to digital signals we

can separate the contribution of each of these factors to
By applying dynamic linear
overall volume. We call this decomposition, and it mirrors
the approach that has been used in market mix modeling
modeling to digital signals we
for decades to model the contributions to a brands weekly can separate the contribution
sales. However, whereas sales models are relatively stable of each of these factors to
over time, we know that the drivers of search volumes
overall volume. We call this
change more regularly, particularly when brands launch new
campaigns or change their activity. So we need models
decomposition...
that are able to respond to this. This is where the dynamic
element of the modeling comes in constantly adjusting and refreshing the assumptions and parameters
in the model so that our attribution evolves at the same speed as the consumer conversation, rather than
assuming that the future will always look like the past.

This decomposition gives us not one signal for each data source but several for example, a baseline
search signal, and others for campaign-driven searches, news-driven searches, seasonal patterns, and other
short-term reaction signals.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 7

Decomposition of digital signals using dynamic linear models
RAW DIGITAL SIGNALS MODELED COMPONENTS

LONG-TERM
BASE LEVEL OF SIGNAL
SEARCH TRENDS

DYNAMIC
LINEAR
MODELS SEASONAL INFLUENCES

SOCIAL SHORT-TERM
IMPACT OF CAMPAIGN SPEND
TRENDS

REACTIONS TO EVENTS
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

By applying dynamic modeling to a range of digital behavior sources we have been able to see which
elements of these signals are influenced by long-term versus short-term factors and even which factors
are more likely to drive search metrics versus social metrics.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 8

SECTION 4
Long and short-term indicators of brand
health
Long-term: search is linked to salience, social to dynamism
In general, the reasons that consumers search for a brand are not the same as the reasons they will talk about
that brand online. But both are able to reveal interesting insight into a brands equity.

The long-term baseline search trend for a brand is most

strongly reflective of how salient that brand is for consumers. In
one example, from a U.S. alcohol category, a brands salience
score (a measure of how quickly and easily a brand comes to
Search is linked to how
mind when people are making a purchase decision) explains 81
percent of the variation in its baseline search volumes over time.
top of mind a brand is

This is not surprising but it is important: brands are searched R = 81%

2
for when they come more readily to mind for consumers. The SALIENCE
underlying search trend gives us a fast read on a brands
current salience, acting as a leading indicator of changes in
brand salience that may have long-term consequences.

The underlying social baseline tells us something different but

Social is more linked to
how new and innovative
a brand is seen to be
equally important. Rather than salience, it reflects the long-
term perception of a brands dynamism the belief that it is
innovative, ahead of the trend, and doing new things. For the
same U.S. alcohol category, perceived dynamism (the degree
to which people see the brand as setting trends in its category)

R = 79%
explains 79 percent of the variation in its long-term baseline of
2 social buzz.

DYNAMISM
Together, these long-term signals from search and social
can provide marketers with leading indicators of changes in
salience and dynamism that may help identify improvements
and declines more quickly than current brand tracking.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 9

Short-term: events can be dramatic, but arent always meaningful
As marketers we are increasingly encouraged to adopt an
PRODUCT
always-on mentality keeping our fingers on the pulse RECALL
of trending events, news and conversations around our
brands. For sure, these brand moments can be dramatic
even scary but how much do they matter for our
brands?

Its certainly the case that events can cause major short-
term spikes in search. The graph opposite shows one
of the fast-growing brands from that same U.S. alcohol
category, this time showing the levels of search and social
SOCIAL SEARCH
signals before, during and after a major product recall.
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

As we can see, theres a huge uplift in both search volumes and social buzz when the product recall
happened. This was also associated with a strong increase in negative social sentiment (from an average
of 34 percent in the preceding period to a peak of 49 percent). However, in reality this turned out to be a
very short-term effect that did not translate into any more lasting change in consumer sentiment or brand
health with both sales and equity measures continuing to increase unabated in the long term.

Zooming out from this particular bad Drivers of short-term spikes in social conversation
news day, this example reflects a
OTHER
general pattern: that short-term search 5.3%
MEME
and social volumes are mainly driven 8.0%
by factors that have very little impact
on underlying brand equity. Often one
of the biggest contributors is a brands
own social media marketing activity.
NEWS
An in-depth analysis of Twitter volumes 17.3%
and sentiment for 16 brands found BRAND ACTIVITY
53.3%
that their own campaigns and short-
term promotions (e.g. retweet to win
competitions) were by far the largest
driver of short-term buzz. CELEBRITY
16.0%

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 10

We also saw that the size of the effect was reasonably consistent in terms of percent uplift over the base
level for various different brands across these different types of events, with brand campaigns and celebrity
associations/endorsements being slightly more powerful than memes or news in their ability to create buzz.

Average Strength of Reaction (%) uplift

473.9%
416.5%
386.5%

299.7%

131.6%

BRAND CELEBRITY MEME NEWS OTHER

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

However, volume and size of effect are only half the story. When we look at the effect on sentiment,
we can see that news events, while slightly smaller in absolute terms than a brand driven activity,
usually have a net negative effect on sentiment, whereas brand campaigns make the general tone of
conversation about a brand only slightly more positive.
Average change in sentiment
RATIO CHANGE (%)
MORE POSITIVE

58.7%

11% 12.2% 18.8%

MORE NEGATIVE

BRAND CELEBRITY MEME NEWS OTHER

-180.3%
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 11

In other words, when it comes to social media, bad news about brands actually has far more ability to
meaningfully alter the conversation around a brand than good news does!

Looking at sentiment also reveals the power of celebrity association or endorsement. While this contributes
less overall change in short-term social buzz than brand campaigns, it can be a far more powerful driver of
positivity, demonstrating that there is a definite halo effect from these associations.

Across all these categories, though, the effects are felt

largely short-term. Of course, these kinds of events need
We see no evidence that
to be managed in ways that ensure they dont turn into
more lasting perception problems but a short-term event
adopting a day trader mentality
should be dealt with by addressing immediate concerns to brand management leads to
and focusing back on the fundamentals of what makes your better long-term brand health.
brand strong not by overhauling the way you plan your
brand. We see no evidence that adopting a day trader
mentality to brand management leads to better long-term brand health.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 12

SECTION 5
Using digital signals to measure
campaign performance
In addition to reacting to long-term movements and
short-term events, volumes of both search and social
When media spend increases, we
react to the influence of increasing media. If media spend
decreases, both signals will tend to decrease, whereas when
see proportional increases
media spend increases, we see proportional increases in in people seeking more
people seeking more information and talking more about the information and talking more
brand.
about the brand.
But where these signals become really useful to marketers is in the differences in things that affect the size
of these uplifts for both kinds of data, and what these can tell us about the performance of a campaign. The
efficiencies of the impact of spend on search and social signals tell us different things. High efficiencies in
either suggest good in-market advertising performance, but differences between the two suggest campaigns
are working in different ways.

% INCREASE IN SEARCH VOLUME AND SOCIAL CONVERSATION

15 CATEGORIES
10%

SEARCH

10%
5%

SOCIAL
1%
-4%

0% 4%

-5%

DECREASE NO CHANGE SMALL INCREASE BIG INCREASE

IN SPEND IN SPEND IN SPEND
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 13

 The social response to advertising campaigns Efficiency of impact on spend on
is related to the level of creative cut through. social conversation
Campaigns which are perceived as being
highly creatively impactful or different drive SOCIAL 12%

AVERAGE INCREASE IN SOCIAL MENTIONS

a higher level of social response, dollar for
dollar, than those which cut through less.

PER INCREASED GRP

This level of conversion to social response
corresponds clearly with Millward Browns 6%
Awareness Index (AI) score, and provides
a leading indicator for the likely impact of
that campaign in market. Campaigns with 2%
strong AI generate high levels of social buzz
relative to their media spend level, allowing
these short-term components of social buzz
CAMPAIGNS WITH CAMPAIGNS WITH CAMPAIGNS WITH
to become important in-market indicators of LOW AI MEDIUM AI HIGH AI
current creative performance. Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

As with the long-term trend, search is different. Campaigns drive a higher level of search response when they
are perceived as having more new news. Across the brands and campaigns we studied, we can see that
the highest uplift in short-term search volumes came from campaigns that combined significant increases in
media spend with a news-focused communications task (e.g. a product launch or the re-launch of an existing
brand).
Impact on search by advertising objective
ENHANCEMENT LAUNCH / RE-LAUNCH
9%
% INCREASE IN SEARCH

1%
0%

-2%
-4%

-7%

LOW MEDIUM HIGH LOW MEDIUM HIGH

SIZE OF SPEND CHANGE

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 14

Across the same set of brands over time, we saw campaigns designed to impact through communication of
new messages or news were much more efficient at generating search uplifts than ads with little new news,
whereas high efficiency in generating brand conversation on social media related strongly to our validated in-
market measure of creative cut through. So ads that were creatively more powerful generate higher impact on
social chatter, whereas ads that are successfully conveying new information have a bigger impact on active
interest in a brand online.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 15

SECTION 6
New rules and a new approach
As weve seen, through our approach of using dynamic models built from studying large numbers of brands,
not static modeling in isolation, weve been able to derive some general rules for how search and social
signals respond to long and short-term factors. Weve shown how search and social differ in the information
they give us, and which types of signal tell us about long-term brand equity versus immediate concerns.

This marks an important departure from the way search

and social data is currently used for research and The short term has its place,
analytics. We believe many marketers using search and
social have been too focused on the short term and on
but on its own it can lead to
trending changes, and oblivious to the different types of trigger-happy brand planning
information encoded in social signals. The short term has and too much focus on events
its place, but on its own it can lead to trigger-happy brand that have little lasting effect
planning and too much focus on events that have little
lasting effect on brands.
on brands.

As brand researchers and planners we think marketers need tools that let them use these new data signals to
make informed brand planning decisions, not just short-term stimulants. Most importantly, the insights from
these signals need to have a tangible relationship to the brand performance metrics that marketers are using
today, so they provide an improvement to a common language of brand equity measurement, not another set
of siloed digital-specific metrics. Our Digital Behavior Analytics solutions provide these advanced modeling
capabilities so brands can separate the signals from the digital noise, track meaningful leading indicators of
brand performance, and have the confidence to interpret and act on what those signals are telling them.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 16

CASE STUDY
Digital signals in action:
Warburtons 2015 advertising launch
In 2015, Warburtons, a leading UK bakery brand
relaunched its brand communications with a dramatic
change in creative direction. The previous ad campaign
had successfully focussed on the role that baked goods
plays within families. Warburtons new creative direction
was designed to create breakthrough communications that
The impact of the campaigns
not only brought excitement to the bakery category, but so far has surpassed our
that stood out across all categories. The new campaigns: expectations. Our new episodic
The Deliverers, starring Sylvester Stallone, and The Giant
approach showcases the fact
Crumpet Show, starring the Muppets both leveraged
humour and recognisable music, and featured Chairman,
that while we take our baking
Jonathan Warburton himself. Warburton said The impact of seriously, we dont like to take
the campaigns so far has surpassed our expectations. Our ourselves too seriously as a
new episodic approach showcases the fact that while we
brand, and perfectly reflect
take our baking seriously, we dont like to take ourselves too
seriously as a brand, and perfectly reflect Warburtons sense
Warburtons sense of fun
of fun and family. and family.
The new campaigns have been significantly more efficient at driving search, and particularly at increasing
online conversations, helping Warburtons achieve their brand objectives of driving talkability, increasing
sales, and maintaining their position as the UKs No. 1 bakery brand.

Warburtons new campaign marked a shift in creative style and media laydown

2012-2014 TV GRPs 2015 TV GRPs THE DELIVERERS

THE GIANT
250 CRUMPET SHOW
200
150
100
50
0
31/12/2012 30/06/2013 31/12/2013 30/016/2014 31/12/2014 30/06/2015
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 17

Each wave of the new Warburtons advertising drove strong consumer reaction which we observed even in the
raw digital signals especially in social media, where volume is more closely linked to creative cut through.

SOCIAL SEARCH THE DELIVERERS

14,000 140
THE GIANT
12,000 CRUMPET SHOW 120

10,000 100

8,000 80

6,000 60

4,000 40

2,000 20

0 0
07/01/2013 07/07/2013 07/01/2014 07/07/2014 07/01/2015 07/07/2015
Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

The new creative drove significantly more cut through in 2015. And importantly, this efficiency of cut through
was sustained beyond the initial spike in the raw signals when each new ad first aired.

EFFICIENCY OF DRIVING BRAND INTEREST EFFICIENCY OF GENERATING BRAND BUZZ

Average additional search index points per GRP spent Average additional tweet generated per GRP spent

1.8 10
1.4
1.2

4
2

2013 2014 2015 2013 2014 2015

SEARCH SOCIAL

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015 Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

Again, the biggest effect was in social buzz, but there is also a meaningful uplift in search, a signal of brand
interest and news value this is especially true for The Giant Crumpet Show suggesting that the campaign
was not only cutting through, but also landing news about Warburtons product range.

This was validated by the in-market creative tracking we performed on the campaign. Warburtons The Giant
Crumpet Show was rated the most enjoyable of all the 2015 Christmas ads tested by Millward Brown in the
UK. Consistent with its effect on social buzz, the ad scored particularly strongly on perceived involvement,
distinctiveness and dynamism. The news value, and persuasive power of the ad also came out strongly, as
predicted by its effect on short-term search behaviours.

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 18

 Millward Browns Christmas ads study 2015 Warburtons
The Giant Crumpet Show results

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE DISTINCTIVE

INVOLVING INTERESTING

3.4 3.7 3.4 DISTURBING SOOTHING

UNPLEASANT PLEASANT
ENJOYMENT AFFINITY DYNAMISM
IRRITATING GENTLE

RATIONAL RESPONSE BORING WEAK INVOLVEMENT

DULL

3.5 3.6 3.7 3.5 7.2

PERSUASION NEW INFORMATION DIFFERENT RELEVANT

Source: Millward Brown Global R&D Study 2015

2016 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com 19