Millward Brown and Dynamic Logic in co-operation with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) have researched what people around the world gain by becoming fans of brands, what global marketers expect from social media and what drives most value for both groups.
The report identifies the perceived value that social media delivers for marketers. Of the participating WFA members, 85% regard fan pages as a means of securing additional insight and increasing loyalty, while 80% cited the opportunity to increase advocacy. Of those participating WFA members, 96% are spending more in this area and 27% are finding that running fan pages takes more time and money than anticipated.
Despite increased time and money being invested, 50% of the WFA members who participated were unsure of their return on investment, 23% thought they were getting a good return but 27% regarded payback as just average or poor.
Value of a Fan is based on interviews with 24 multinationals in WFA membership and online questionnaires with 3,687 of their fans. The fan pages selected included brands from the confectionery, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, personal care and telecommunications sectors. Although some pages were global, others were specifically targeted at consumers in Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK or the US.
Value of a Fan suggests that successful pages deepen both brand equity and engagement. The research notes that the pages generating the strongest brand response were not necessarily those with the largest number of fans.
Duncan Southgate, Global Innovation Director at Millward Brown, said: “Fan expectation of brands in the social media space is increasing all the time and Value of a Fan seems to demonstrate that marketers only get out what they put in. Marketers that don’t regularly add new and interesting content to their fan pages and embrace what their fans want from the page are missing out on an opportunity to build loyalty among some of their most important consumers.”
Robert Dreblow, Marketing Communications Director at the WFA said: “Many marketers are asking the question ‘what is the value of a fan’? This project is a great first step towards creating a dashboard of learning to enable companies to answer that question for their own brands. We welcome further work in this area."
About Millward Brown
Millward Brown is one of the world's leading research agencies and is expert in effective advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research. Through the use of an integrated suite of validated research solutions — both qualitative and quantitative — Millward Brown helps clients build strong brands and services. Millward Brown has more than 77 offices in 53 countries. Additional practices include Millward Brown's Global Media Practice (media effectiveness unit), The Neuroscience Practice (using neuroscience to enhance traditional research techniques), Millward Brown Optimor (focused on helping clients maximize the returns on their brand and marketing investments), Dynamic Logic (the world leader in digital marketing effectiveness) and Firefly Millward Brown (a global qualitative research business). Millward Brown is part of Kantar, WPP's insight, information and consultancy group.
About Dynamic Logic
Dynamic Logic (www.dynamiclogic.com) is a leader in providing advertising effectiveness insights across all digital platforms and the broader media mix. As a Millward Brown company, Dynamic Logic offers advertisers, agencies and publishers the unique combination of world-class expertise on brand building and media coupled with normative insights from its database of thousands of digital campaigns, the largest in the industry. Founded in 1999, Dynamic Logic pioneered online branding measurement and has grown with the digital age, developing innovations across 27 digital platforms and establishing specialty practices in cross-media, social media, mobile, gaming and custom solutions.
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