A study from Synaptic/Kantar finds that consumer-buying trends are significantly impacted when newsworthy earned and paid messages are combined. The combination of earned PR placements with narrative marketing segments, which are information-rich branded content placed in targeted paid media, delivered more impact than brand messaging alone. Other findings include:
• Women are able to synthesize messages delivered over different formats, resulting in a higher lift in brand awareness than if the messages are delivered via a single platform. Men, however, see no multichannel lift over earned PR, their highest scoring format.
• Among the target, both the paid and the earned formats perform very well on their own, with earned significantly increasing awareness metrics and paid increasing persuasion metrics.
• Brand messages packaged as news, whether delivered as earned or paid media, generate strong brand perceptions, message building and awareness.
Source: Synaptic/Kantar