Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics company today announces that it is expanding its LINK ad testing portfolio. Kantar is extending its creative effectiveness capabilities across its LINK+ and LINK AI solutions, allowing clients to test their creative assets in almost any format, including brand experiences and influencer content.
The most creative and effective ads generate more than four times as much profit, a recent analysis by Kantar and WARC found. Using LINK+, Kantar’s survey-based creative evaluation and diagnostic solution, brands are now able to test the effectiveness of a wider range of assets, including:
- Ads in any social media apps, including short-form video formats like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts
- Ads and native content on websites (e.g. Yahoo, ESPN)
- Ads in retail media networks and e-commerce platforms
- Audio ads on radio and digital channels, (such as podcasts and music streaming services like Spotify)
- In-context ads on digital VOD platforms
- In-gaming ads on consoles like Xbox and PlayStation
- TV, digital and cinema trailers
- Influencer content on social media
- Ads and sponsorship at events
- Digital and in-person brand experiences
Additionally, LINK+ will have more configuration options, so that advertisers can recreate virtually any channel or format for in context testing, such as local or niche social media networks, native ad formats, and more. This new custom context capability will enable testing of digital content in a way that is true to the real-life experience of the audience, giving brands access to more nuanced and accurate creative effectiveness insights.
In LINK AI, Kantar’s AI-powered ad testing solution, clients will now be able to test static ads, including digital display, print and outdoor formats. This gives advertisers consistent predictive creative effectiveness measurement, alongside its existing TV and online video testing capabilities.
Duncan Southgate, Global Creative and Media Lead at Kantar, said: “Well-executed ad campaigns are an important driver of brand growth, building meaningful difference as well as mental availability. And with the media landscape constantly changing, advertisers need to be able to test their content in a way that reflects the real context in which people consume ads, to understand how they will perform in the real world. Only 2 out of 3 of the top performing TV ads that we test also score highly in a digital context, so in an economic environment where every penny counts, brands can’t risk reusing content without first having a solid understanding of how people will respond to it.”
Coca-Cola is an early adopter of the new capabilities of LINK+, using it to test the consumer experiences which formed part of the brand’s Kantar Creative Effectiveness Award-winning ‘Pick up a Coke, light up the dark’ campaign.
Grant McKenzie, Creative Strategy Director at Coca-Cola, commented: “For brands to be relevant, they need to provide genuine value to the consumer and make some kind of difference in their lives. What we learned from the process of testing and understanding more about the ‘Pick up a Coke, light up the dark’ experiences, is that if we want those moments to really matter and to really have that emotional resonance, we need to understand how they're going to land before anyone even steps in that space. It was incredibly valuable for us to be able to make sure that we weren’t just getting carried away by the theatrics and this amazing creative idea but genuinely understanding what the emotional takeaway will be for the consumer.”
The most creative and effective ads generate more than four times as much profit, a recent analysis by Kantar and WARC found. Using LINK+, Kantar’s survey-based creative evaluation and diagnostic solution, brands are now able to test the effectiveness of a wider range of assets, including:
- Ads in any social media apps, including short-form video formats like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts
- Ads and native content on websites (e.g. Yahoo, ESPN)
- Ads in retail media networks and e-commerce platforms
- Audio ads on radio and digital channels, (such as podcasts and music streaming services like Spotify)
- In-context ads on digital VOD platforms
- In-gaming ads on consoles like Xbox and PlayStation
- TV, digital and cinema trailers
- Influencer content on social media
- Ads and sponsorship at events
- Digital and in-person brand experiences
Additionally, LINK+ will have more configuration options, so that advertisers can recreate virtually any channel or format for in context testing, such as local or niche social media networks, native ad formats, and more. This new custom context capability will enable testing of digital content in a way that is true to the real-life experience of the audience, giving brands access to more nuanced and accurate creative effectiveness insights.
In LINK AI, Kantar’s AI-powered ad testing solution, clients will now be able to test static ads, including digital display, print and outdoor formats. This gives advertisers consistent predictive creative effectiveness measurement, alongside its existing TV and online video testing capabilities.
Duncan Southgate, Global Creative and Media Lead at Kantar, said: “Well-executed ad campaigns are an important driver of brand growth, building meaningful difference as well as mental availability. And with the media landscape constantly changing, advertisers need to be able to test their content in a way that reflects the real context in which people consume ads, to understand how they will perform in the real world. Only 2 out of 3 of the top performing TV ads that we test also score highly in a digital context, so in an economic environment where every penny counts, brands can’t risk reusing content without first having a solid understanding of how people will respond to it.”
Coca-Cola is an early adopter of the new capabilities of LINK+, using it to test the consumer experiences which formed part of the brand’s Kantar Creative Effectiveness Award-winning ‘Pick up a Coke, light up the dark’ campaign.
Grant McKenzie, Creative Strategy Director at Coca-Cola, commented: “For brands to be relevant, they need to provide genuine value to the consumer and make some kind of difference in their lives. What we learned from the process of testing and understanding more about the ‘Pick up a Coke, light up the dark’ experiences, is that if we want those moments to really matter and to really have that emotional resonance, we need to understand how they're going to land before anyone even steps in that space. It was incredibly valuable for us to be able to make sure that we weren’t just getting carried away by the theatrics and this amazing creative idea but genuinely understanding what the emotional takeaway will be for the consumer.”