Issue 24
JULY 2002

Surround Sessions: Internet Advertising Makes Good. >>

Like a prodigal son, the Internet has returned to us—chastened and ready to make good. After the so-called tech wreck, skepticism has become the new vogue among advertisers, who now insist upon ample justification for online ad spends. Enter into the fray New York Times Digital. They've pioneered a new online ad product that delivers the proverbial goods. It's called a "Surround Session," and it's a major breakthrough for the efficacy of Internet advertising.

Surround Sessions Explained

Surround Sessions refer to the practice of giving a single advertiser every major ad spot on a predetermined number of Web pages. This means that as visitors navigate a site, they are "followed" and exposed to just one advertiser for the duration of the session—usually five to ten exposures, with every Web page visited counting as one exposure. The New York Times Digital's Surround Sessions can be targeted to only those site visitors that meet certain criteria, such as age, gender, Zip code, or income level. They can also be delivered by day, Internet domain, and/or editorial interest. For example, advertisers might target visitors with dot-com addresses who are 30 or older, have household incomes of over $100,000, and who clicked on a link to the business section between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Monday through Friday.

It won't be long before Surround Sessions are widespread. Already, Boston.com, Click2Net, DoubleClick, and VIPcast are launching their versions of surround sessions.

Preliminary Results

The first advertiser to do a Surround Session campaign was AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals on behalf of Nexium. American Airlines followed soon. Then came Miramax, Verizon, Saab, Cingular, pre-scandal Worldcom, Audi and a host of others.

Recent research compared the lift derived from Surround Sessions to traditional advertising. The results were very positive. They found brand awareness almost tripled, rising 11 percent compared to 4 percent for traditional. Message association, the ability to connect key messages with the right brand, more than quadrupled at 61 percent compared to 14 percent for traditional. Brand favorability rose 3 percent compared to 1 percent, and purchase intent rose 4 percent compared to 1 percent.

Benefits to Advertisers

Surround Sessions liberate a campaign's creative from a number of formatting restraints. Because the sessions enable an exclusive relationship with the target for an extended period of time, an uninterrupted sequential delivery of messages is possible. This means that unlike a traditional banner ad, surround sessions permit true storytelling, which can dramatically increase response rates. For example, MDB's recent campaign for NeuStar featured Surround Sessions that earned an impressive 7.05% click-through rate.

Because a session gives one advertiser every major ad spot, there is no competitive clutter. This means that advertisers get a larger share of their target's attention.

Another benefit for advertisers is an improved ability to quantify expectations. Until now, it's been virtually impossible to plan Internet advertising with the same goal-seeking measurements we use in planning most other media: frequency (the number of times an audience is exposed to an ad) and reach (percentage of the target audience that is exposed). With Surround Sessions, media planners can more closely approximate the frequency and reach metric because they're guaranteed a frequency of five exposures. This means that advertisers are a step closer to evaluating online buys with the same criteria used for other media. The resulting uniformity gives planners more precise tools for advancing advertiser interests.

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MDB Honored with MAXI Awards >>

On Tuesday, July 16th, the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) honored MDB with two MAXI Awards for exceptional direct mail. The awards are based upon actual results generated. MDB won in the "Consumer" category with "Graveyards of the Pacific," a package produced for National Geographic Society. MDB was honored in the "B2B" category for the "KnowledgePlex" campaign—developed on behalf of the Fannie Mae Foundation.