Across brand-building disciplines, a chorus championing the virtue of measuring engagement in ad testing grows in number and volume with the emergence of each new digital channel. I and the rest of us at comScore ARS agree that advertising engagement is an essential component in understanding persuasion and effectiveness.

As online sample quality has improved over the years, so has the quality of diagnostic insight gleaned from these samples. For over a decade, comScore ARS, while fielding research on whether advertising effectively persuades (re: Lift in Share of Choice™ score), has also been systematically gathering audience diagnostics to help understand how advertising works.

We have studied the diagnostic responses to each of the ads tested with comScore ARS, and our research team has been pouring over the meta-data to understand the relationship between these diagnostics and the Lift in Share of Choice™ -- a KPI of the world’s largest advertisers. We’re learning how consumer brand preferences change with diagnostics of advertising engagement.

Two critical dimensions of ad engagement are “does the ad create a positive impression?” and “does the ad capture and maintain the viewer’s attention?” To quantify the aspect of a positive impression, comScore utilizes attitudinal measures such as ‘ad likability’ and ‘best I’ve seen recently’. To gauge interest, a real-time trace tool delivers the attitudinal data from which our analysis and conclusions are drawn.

The results of these studies have been powerful with a very clear takeaway: There is rarely meaningful persuasion without measurable engagement.

When trying to optimize campaign performance, it’s clear that engagement must be an objective in the opening salvo of your ad if it is to be persuasive. Of course, a brand generally wants to communicate some sort of message through its marketing, and would like to elicit action or to influence certain consumer attitudes. But engagement is the tie that binds these goals together, and it is generally the realm of creative.

Think of it like this: your ad stands virtually no chance of influencing behavior if it can’t attract the attention of consumers at the time of initial exposure. And just capturing their attention is insufficient if you can’t maintain their attention long enough for the brand message to be delivered.

comScore ARS studies the ad experience by leveraging our proprietary analytical framework, which consists of more than two dozen key diagnostic attributes. Does your ad engage consumers? Does it then communicate on message? Finally, does it influence the desired attitudes or action? These are the questions we ask to understand whether an ad will deliver your desired results in-market.

With that said, we have summarized below the key findings from our research on ad engagement:

1. Engagement diagnostics say as much about the effectiveness of an ad as do diagnostics related to Communication and Intent

When examining years of diagnostic data and comparing them against the tested brand’s Lift in Share of Choice™, the power of engagement pops in an undeniable way. Even more compelling is the role that ad engagement plays in generating lifts in Share of Choice™, showing that engagement deserves a prime place alongside traditional influence metrics like Willingness to Recommend and Purchase Intent. The data below shows that average lifts in Share of Choice are highest when an ad, in diagnostic testing, achieves higher than average consumer feedback on engagement.

As a final note on engagement, do not forget that having unique creative does not mean breaking through the clutter no matter the cost to consumer sensibilities. The data below illustrates that the average Lift in Share of Choice™ is very high when consumer think the ad is unique; however, the most irritating ads also tend to have smaller lifts.

This article originally appeared in AdAge on September 7, 2011.

My friend Arny Granat is a successful producer who co-founded Jam Productions in 1972 and is also a partner in Jam Theatricals, where he’s been the recipient of numerous Tony awards. Over his 40 year career, Arny has produced thousands of shows and seen a lot of market research. At a recent dinner, we were discussing how one can best predict if a show will be a success or not. I listened intently as Arny said there is no special formula but there are five key words that, if spoken by anyone who has seen a show, can help make that assessment:

“You’ve Got to See It!”

When people say this, Arny’s experience is that a show’s success is well on its way to being assured.

As I pondered the “Arny factor,” it occurred to me that that it could well reflect the quintessential value of Facebook (or other social media channels) to marketers. A Facebook analysis of the top 100 brand pages suggests that for every Fan, there are an additional 34 Friends of Fans that can be reached. So as Fans talk with their Friends on Facebook, Arny’s theory suggests that brand-related communications (i.e. “you’ve got to see, try, like, etc.”) have the potential for great influence.

At comScore we recently set out discover the extent to which this viral spread of brand messages occurs in practice. We selected three well-known brands for our analysis: Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Microsoft Bing. Using comScore’s new Social Essentials service, we measured the occurrences of these three brand’s unpaid communications with their Fans and the degree to which these communications were seen by the Friends of Fans. Finally we examined the appeal of these brands to their Fans and their Friends using site visitation and buying metrics. The results are compelling.

The first thing we found was that the reach of these brands’ communications were increased by a factor of between 125% and 169% when Friends were included. In other words, more Friends of Fans actually saw impressions of these brands than did Fans. That’s terrific amplification.

But what’s even more impressive is the appeal of the brands to Fans and Friends of Fans. Not surprisingly, we found that Fans have a much higher likelihood than the average Internet user of visiting the brands’ web site (4.6x higher for Southwest Fans) conducting a search query (1.7x more searches using Bing) or buying the brand (8% higher transactions for Starbucks). What was perhaps unexpected is the extent to which Friends of Fans also exhibited consistently higher interaction levels with the three brands than did the average Internet user according to these same metrics. For example, Southwest Friends of Fans visited Southwest.com 2.7x as often as the average Internet user.

Now, one could argue that these results simply reflect the dynamic that “birds of a feather flock together” -- that is, the preferences of Fans and their Friends are inherently similar. I’m sure that is part of the explanation. But, I also think our findings reflect the persuasive influence that Fans have on their Friends. You could call it the amplification impact of a trusted communication.

You could also call it the “Arny factor,” because similar to Arny Granat’s conclusion that an audience’s recommendations to their friends determines the success of a Broadway show, the persuasive influence of a communication among trusted friends appears to affect brand preferences. If this is indeed the case – and at comScore we’ll be conducting additional research to determine whether there is such a causal link – then it means that Facebook represents a breakthrough opportunity for brands to leverage the influence that we all experience from people we trust.

A couple weeks ago, Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner offered an interesting viewpoint on some new ways of solving the current U.S. unemployment situation. Weiner argues that the current dislocation in the job market is not merely an unfortunate byproduct of the housing and financial crises, but that the rapid pace of change in our economy is resulting in difficulty matching job-seekers to the right opportunities. He points to the potential of an “economic graph” – analogous to the social graph or interest graph – to help efficiently allocate our economic resources (i.e. human capital) to opportunities.

One can certainly envision the potential for such a valuable market mechanism, but until we get to that point I would argue that Weiner’s own company might already be helping to reduce that void. Weiner’s article reminded me of an analysis I conducted on Linkedin usage at the height of the unemployment situation in 2009, in which I investigated how this emerging Internet utility might be playing a role in people’s search for new employment. At the time it was clear that Linkedin was used much more readily by those searching for jobs, indicating its importance as a networking tool.

An updated version of the analysis today shows this behavior continuing to hold true. In fact, 23.6% of Linkedin visitors also visited Job Search sites in July, compared to just 11.2% of the total U.S. Internet audience. Heavy Job Searchers accounted for 9.8% of Linkedin visitors, compared to 5.6% of the total Internet audience. While the correlation between these two behaviors does not necessarily imply causation, it does suggest that those who are actively pursuing new job opportunities online and significantly more likely to use Linkedin as a resource.

In addition, we can see that not only are job searchers more likely to visit Linkedin, but they also use the site for considerably longer periods of time. The Heavy Job Searcher, in fact, spent an average of 30.3 minutes on Linkedin.com in July, nearly double that of the average visitor to Linkedin (16.1 minutes per visitor). Moderate (25.7 minutes per visitor) and Light (20.9 minutes per visitor) Job Searchers also visited Linkedin for a significantly longer amount of time over the course of the month.

Social media enables us to reach and influence our friends and colleagues and leverage their respective social graphs to make useful connections with the very people who might place us into the right jobs. Because it is often unfairly pigeon-holed as a purely leisure activity, or even more derisively labeled a “time-waster,” it can be easy to overlook the cases where social media has truly revolutionized the way we leverage real-life networks for meaningful interactions. And for those currently searching for jobs, those interactions can mean the difference between being employed or unemployed. Linkedin, along with other career services sites, just might make the process of searching for jobs more efficient, representing perhaps the first phase in the formulation of a true economic graph. Knowing how many industries are currently being disrupted by the emergence of digital technologies, it is nice to know that the Internet may also represent part of the solution.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on 9/19/2011.

Search Engines are like mothers: they are built to understand you. With the most basic cues, they know if you are happy or sad, coming or going, getting ready for bed or just waking up. They didn’t start out this way, but Google Page Rank gave birth to the viability of getting what you needed just by asking for it. Clearly this process has been refined over the years and will continue to evolve.

Over the past decade we have been presented with every type of specialized search engine you can imagine: Web search, vertical search, retail search, travel search, mobile search, social search, job search… the list goes on and on. In the beginning, specialized search appeared to be the wave of the future for finding exactly what you wanted. If you only desire travel searches, you best go to an Online Travel Agent because they are the only ones that really understand your travel needs and won’t inundate you with extraneous results. Same idea with shopping engines or job search sites – the results you get will be filtered to the right universe of results you’re seeking.

As a result of these specialized search needs, not only has the search engine market ballooned over the past decade, but so have the number of places where people conduct their searching. As people continued to move more of their lives and interests online, vertical search entities spread like wildfire because they were designed to deliver against very particular searcher needs.

This trend is illustrated by the tremendous growth of non-search engine search entities during that time. In August 2011, of the 27 billion searches conducted on desktops in the United States, more than one-third occurred on non-search engines. Search on sites like Amazon, eBay, and Facebook has been growing faster than (and therefore gaining market share from) the core search engines for several years. But in the past year, this vertical search market actually contracted by 6% after several years of strong growth.

While these vertical search sites’ search volume has leveled, the core search engines have actually continued to grow at double digit rates. Searchers are actually migrating back towards their origins, like transplant New Yorkers that have had their fun and are ready to move home and start families. So what might be driving this shift in trend?

I believe the answer lies in searcher intent, and people’s desire to be understood by their search engine. Nothing is more maddening in a search context than having to continually refine your searches to find what you want. (I don’t even want to think about trying to find anything via search online in the 1990s -- it just gives me heartburn.) This problem was of course the driving force behind the initial emergence of vertical search, which enabled searchers to get a higher signal to noise ratio. Vertical search inherently signified searcher intent, while search engine results were often too broad. Even if the top results were what you wanted, they became diluted pretty quickly and you suddenly had too many interpretations of your intended destination.

What’s happened is that the search engines have shown considerable improvement in their use of blended search results to better reflect possible searcher intent. The search experience and their algorithm refinements have gotten so good that it sometimes feels as if they are inside of your head reading your thoughts.

If we take a look at a Google SERP today, it looks quite different than what it used to look like just a few years ago. It includes filtering for topic, location, and date on the left, a map on the right, Google Places results for restaurant reviews, and any number of other refinement options that present themselves depending on a particular search. The search engine’s ability to both interpret searcher intent and offer a multitude of options to be answer your question at that moment is vastly superior to what was available a few years ago.

The below Bing SERP also demonstrates the expanded capabilities of the core search engine experience. Here, upon searching for “flights to Brazil,” we are presented with a variety of options for reviews, price comparison, flight finders with interactive calendars, related searches, and the like. Once again, this experience simply did not exist on the core engines a few years ago, and the vertical search sites flourished as a result.

As these user improvements manifest themselves in the search results and searchers have increasingly begun to rely on them for their more vertically-oriented search needs, we are finally beginning to see a significant shift in the market. Growth in vertical searches is now actually conceding ground to the core search engines in a reversal of the past few years.

Now, don’t go taking this as the beginning of the end of non-search entities. Their business is still alive and well and will continue to serve a critical function for specialized searching behavior. But increasingly, search engines are improving the quality of their results in a way that is helping to fill the void once created by searches with vertical intent. With continued acquisitions of vertical search providers like Google’s acquisition of ITA for travel search or Zagat for restaurant reviews, the core search engines appear focused on this type of searcher intent and I would expect their results, and their share of the search market, to only get better with time.

Earlier this week, Apple sent out an invitation confirming the topic of discussion for its heavily anticipated media event on October 4 – the iPhone. As the buzz surrounding the purported release of the next generation of iPhones escalated in recent weeks, comScore has been studying the potential impact of a new iPhone on the mobile industry at large. We’re pleased to report that comScore’s analysis of the implications the iPhone 5 could have on the operator landscape is available for download here.

In the report, we analyzed the current mobile industry to see what is at stake for each of the players involved.

• Sprint has been rumored to be the next carrier to host the iPhone. What sectors can Apple hope to reach with Sprint that might currently be under-served by Verizon and AT&T?
• What does the entry of a third player mean for Verizon, which just recently joined AT&T in carrying the iPhone in February?
• As the original carrier of the iPhone, does AT&T continue to hold any advantages over other carriers providing the iPhone?
• This next release from Apple comes at a time when the Google Android platform has captured the largest share of the smartphone market in the U.S. What does Apple stand to gain with the potential iPhone 5 release?

Our answers to these questions and more can be found here. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the iPhone announcement next week and what it will mean for the mobile landscape. Stay tuned for additional insights from comScore as we find out more about what’s next for the iPhone.

Download the “iPhone 5: Implications for the Operator Industry” report here.