±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Recognition of the most effective newspaper ads in terms of involvement, not simply recall, has been made possible by the launch of a new measuring tool, Creative Benchmarking, formed by the NMA and Kantar Media.

Using the new research model, the strongest performing newspaper ad in the first quarter of 2010 was for Ovarium Cancer Action, created by ad agency RKCY/Y&R, with media planning and buying handled by MPG.

RKCR/Y&R was also responsible for the second-placed ad, for Government Crime Prevention, a campaign bought and sold by MediaCom and Starcom MediaVest.

Speaking at the Creative Benchmarking launch yesterday, Eithne Anderson, head of group marketing at Lloyds TSB, praised the new comparative element the research brings.

She said: "This adds another element, another layer, to what we’ve already been doing. We will be looking to use it, and will use it, on an ongoing basis."

The financial marketer went on to say NMA’s initial results for Q1 supported a lot of the knowledge she had been getting from TV, and admitted Lloyds had "a long way to go" in terms of newspaper ads, adding: "I hope next time round [Q2] to see us in the Top 10."

Ads created by JWT for Kit Kat (media handled by Mindshare) and Nestle’s Anthem (Mindshare) were third and fourth, followed by a Garnier ad by Publicis London (ZenithOptimedia), a PG Tips ad by Mother (Mindshare), DLKW’s NHS Give Blood ad (Starcom MediaVest / MediaCom), McCann London’s L’Oreal ad (ZenithOptimedia), JWT’s After Eight ad (Mindshare) and Lowe Worldwide’s Magnum Mini (Mindshare).

The new measurement model promises to be the UK’s largest database of consumer response to national newspaper advertising and takes its lead from Kantar’s TV creative benchmarking system.

The NMA claims it allows advertisers for the first time to evaluate the performance of their TV and newspaper ads in the same way.

Each ad is researched with consumers, and scores are benchmarked against the overall database average and the category average, scored on TNS’ AdEval Motivated / Involved measure.

The first 186 print ads in the database from the first quarter of 2010 appear to demonstrate that newspaper ads can be effective and achieve scores comparable to TV ads.