Comscore and Facebook Release European Insights About Earned and Paid Media Reach and Effectiveness

Facebook Paid Advertising Generated 130 Percent Uplift in Purchase Behaviour on Asos.com in 4-Week Period Following Campaign Exposure

London, UK, 18 July 2012 - Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, and Facebook today released the third white paper in The Power of Like series, The Power of Like Europe: How Social Marketing Works for Retail Brands, focusing on European retail brands such as ASOS, H&M, La Redoute, Topshop and Zara. This research illustrates how these popular consumer brands are utilising Facebook to deliver media impressions at scale, achieve brand amplification and resonance, and ultimately drive desired behaviours among key customer segments. The analysis leverages data and insights from the Comscore Social Essentials™ and Comscore AdEffx™ products. To download a complimentary copy of the report, please visit: www.comscore.com/likeEU.

“The findings from this study offer several valuable insights to brand marketers and advertisers who want to better understand the marketing effectiveness of their paid and earned media campaigns on Facebook,” said Mike Shaw, Director of Marketing Solutions at Comscore. “With a framework for measuring the value and impact of paid and earned media campaigns, brands will gain the insights needed to optimize their social marketing efforts. While every campaign is unique and may vary in its ultimate effectiveness, this research demonstrates how Facebook marketing can be effective in reaching consumers and influencing their actual purchase behaviour.”

Key insights fromThe Power of Like Europeinclude:

• On Facebook in the UK, France and Germany, 32 percent of a user’s time is spent on the Homepage/News Feed, the primary location where branded content is consumed. While the News Feed is the main driver of branded exposure on Facebook relative to the brand page, only a small portion of Fans see content from a brand in a given week (across retail and other categories)
• Branded marketing messages delivered to Fans can be virally amplified to extend brand reach to Friends of Fans when Fans engage with the message (i.e. “like”, comment, share, check-in, etc.). European retail brands such as ASOS, H&M and Zara have the ability to disseminate marketing messages to up to 44 Friends of Fans for every Fan the brand has on Facebook.
• Friends of Fans often have slightly different demographic profiles to the core Fan base of a brand. Understanding where the differences lie provides brands the ammunition to strategically target these demographics and help engage them as consumers, and even drive them into the physical or online stores.
• Fans and Friends of Fans of retail brands (and other categories’ brands) often represent higher value customers. For example, ASOS fans were 3.6x as likely to visit the ASOS website than non-fans, which may be expected given their stated affinity for the brand. However, Friends of Fans were 2.7x as likely to visit the site as well, which may speak to both the inherent similarities between the Fan and Friend of Fan groups but also to the persuasive effects of earned media exposure on Friends of Fans.
• Not only were social impressions effective at generating positive brand engagement for ASOS, but paid impressions were also effective and achieving behavioural lifts. Facebook paid ads generated 130 per cent uplift in purchase behaviour on the ASOS website in the four weeks following ad exposure in comparison to consumers who were not exposed but had a similar affinity to ASOS (in terms of site visitation and purchase) as the test group in the four weeks prior to the advertising campaign.

Leading Fashion Retailers Highlight the Importance of 3rd Party ROI Measurement
“ASOS has been at the forefront of Facebook marketing for many years, and in order to continue increasing investment it is crucial to have access to reliable ROI measurement,” said Fiona Marshall, Head of Marketing Womenswear, ASOS. “The recent research by Comscore shows that ASOS experienced a substantial uplift in site visits and online purchasing as a result of our paid advertising on Facebook.”

“Facebook is an important element of our marketing strategy and as Comscore underlines in its most recent research, social media can be very effective at delivering branded impressions at scale and ultimately driving additional potential customers to our site,” said Nicolas Perignon, Social Media and M-commerce Marketing Manager, La Redoute.

About Comscore
Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Ayaan Mohamud
Comscore, Inc.
+ 44 (0) 207-099-1775
worldpress@comscore.com