Sheri Klein
As a Research Director, Sheri Klein is responsible for advising the planning and research process for the Ad Council’s public service campaigns. She is also responsible for evaluating campaign effectiveness and conducing cross-campaign analyses for the organization. A sociologist in training (and at heart), Sheri has been involved in social research for over 10 years and plans to chronicle research trends and best practices within the social marketing world.
Posts by Sheri
The Impassioned Few
In the wake of last week’s news regarding the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, the media turned its attention to Joe Paterno’s career. It seemed that every news channel, website, station or publication was debating whether or not JoePa should resign or be fired; then they focused their coverage on the Penn State protesters’ reaction to his ultimate termination. Meanwhile, a group of Penn State Alums who were enraged by the coverage of the incident decided to reframe the issue and remind people that there are victims in this story. Four former students— Jerry & Jaime Needel, Bob Troia and Larena Lettow—teamed up with the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) to support the victims and survivors of sexual abuse.
Since the Penn State news story broke (one week ago), these former students jumped on the issue, created a website, began spreading the word through their social media networks and have recently begun receiving some traditional media coverage.
As described on their website—proudtobeapennstater.com— are:
In one week they have raised over $390,000 — more than half-way to their goal to raise $500,000.
Congratulations to these Penn State Alums for putting the focus back on the victims. You have inspired us individuals in the social marketing world; reminding us that it only takes an impassioned few to do a lot for an issue or cause.
Filed under: fundraising
Tags: fundraising, Penn State, Proud to be a Penn Stater, RAINN, Social Media
Somebody’s Watching You(Tube)…
There is no denying the power of YouTube when you are trying to engage the public in a social marketing campaign. It is the number one entertainment site with 99 million unique visitors per month –51% of online viewers. As we upload our videos to YouTube there is always the hope that we are reaching the audience we intend to and are engaging them in a way that we want them to engage. Thanks to YouTube Insights, we have a tool that helps us better understand ‘the who, what, when, where and how’ of our viewing audiences. But can this type of data really tell us if our videos are effective?
A couple of my colleagues here at the Ad Council recently conducted a cross-campaign analysis of our PSAs viewed on YouTube. They looked at total views, sharing, comments and audience attention for 27 Ad Council TV PSAs. What they found is that each of these measurement components is not necessarily correlated with another. For instance, one video may have low audience attention but elicit a high number of shares. Another video may have a lot of views but not that many comments. What we gleaned from their analysis is that, in order to determine any effectiveness in audience engagement, we need to first determine the true objective of our video. As such, if you are trying to reach a niche target you might not want number of views or comments as your best measure of engagement success; number of shares and/or audience attention might be better measures. Once you have determined your key objectives and measures, here are a few things to keep in mind when analyzing and interpreting your results:
- The description of your video is really important—if viewers expect one thing and get something different they will drop off, leaving you will low audience attention
- If audience attention drops mid-way through your video (as identified by Insight’s “Hot Spot” feature), consider editing the content and/or adding annotations to keep viewers engaged
- Videos with celebrities and/or humor typically elicit more views, shares and audience attention
- The more polarizing/ controversial videos obtain the most comments (it is typically the lovers and haters that have the most to say)
- Videos that provide new information to an audience elicit more shares
- The demographic information collected through YouTube Insight is based on viewers who are logged-in to their YouTube account. You should therefore take caution when interpreting your audience reach since most viewers are not logged-in
Have you had successes and challenges using these insights?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Ad Council, Hot Spot, Social Marketing, YouTube, YouTube Insights
To Learn More…: Tips to boost URL and Hotline Recall
It is always nice when we can create a marketing campaign with a self-contained message that doesn’t require any further thought beyond what we are messaging in a TV or radio ad…
BUT…we are often in the business of selling our website or hotline number, where our audience can go for a breadth of information (that we can’t provide in a 30 or 60 second TV or radio spot). In fact, it’s pretty typical to find the following call-to-action at the end of a social marketing ad:
“To learn more, visit…”
“For more tips, visit…”
“Join us at…”
“To donate, call…”
Since we often rely so heavily on getting people to visit our website and/or call our hotline, I suggest that we dedicate a little more time and effort promoting our URLs and phone numbers. Here is a list of recommendations and examples that my colleagues here at the Ad Council have put together to boost URL and Hotline recall for TV and Radio ads.
- URLs should be catchy and easy to remember
- If you are tied to a URL that might be difficult to remember, provide a search phrase in place of/in addition to the URL (e.g. “Search __________ online”)
For TV ads:
- Expose URL/phone number for as long as possible (no less than :05 seconds)
- Make sure the URL/ phone number is prominent and easy to read
- When appropriate (if it doesn’t interfere with the creative execution) consider displaying the URL/phone number throughout the entire advertisement
- Consider a graphical treatment that integrates the URL or phone number into the action of the ad
For Radio ads:
- Consider repetition of URL/hotline ( 2 or more mentions per :60 ad)
Can you think of any campaigns that do a great job of promoting a website or phone number?
Filed under: Campaigns, Communications, Research and Evaluation, Uncategorized
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