This case study looks at Epson, the Japanese electronics company led by the Seiko Epson Corporation, and how it worked with digital advertising agency Rocket Fuel to deliver a 19 per cent lift in consideration across Europe.

Epson was founded in 1942 with the objective of creating compact, energy-saving, high precision technologies. The global company now has more than 78,000 employees in 99 companies around the world. Earlier this year agenda21, the media planners for Epson, tasked digital advertising agency Rocket Fuel with an online advertising campaign. Rocket Fuel specialises in artificial intelligence in digital advertising.ObjectiveEpson’s main objective was to drive lift in consideration for Epson Printers by intelligently targeting a B2B audience across multiple European markets. It also wanted to measure lift in consideration for key brand attributes: speed, cost and energy efficiency. StrategyRocket Fuel planned to use real-time analysis of the results to optimise Epson’s campaign towards all audience segments to show the largest lift in specified brand metrics. The Real-time Brand Optimisation technology takes brand sentiment feedback from in-banner surveys and feeds it directly into real-time targeting technology. Rocket Fuel instantaneously applies that data to media buying decision, enabling clients to focus on driving upper and mid funnel marketing metrics, such as awareness, consideration and purchase intent as they are running. ExecutionRocket Fuel used unbranded, in-banner surveys to measure consideration for Epson printers and its key brand metrics amongst test (i.e. exposed to the adverts) and control groups. Using Real-time Brand Optimisation technology it gathered and analysed feedback in real time, and optimised Epson’s campaign ‘in flight’ towards all audience segments showing the largest lift in these specified brand metrics.Rather than simply driving clicks, Rocket Fuel’s advanced optimisation technology enabled Epson to focus on its brand, influencing potential customers further up the purchasing funnel by driving objectives around increased awareness, consideration and purchase intent.ResultsEpson’s primary objective was to drive lift in consideration for Epson printers.With this in mind, it saw a 30 per cent lift in consideration for its printers in the UK, 56 per cent in Germany and 45 per cent in France. This equated to an average overall lift in brand consideration of 19 per cent across the whole of Europe. Rocket Fuel also found a lack of correlation in Lift and CTR index, which showed that the best performing segments in terms of Lift were not the best performing CTR segments. Furthermore, Epson saw the highest change in brand consideration, five per cent, when compared to its main competitors. For Xerox there was a four per cent reduction in brand consideration, a three per cent reduction for HP, a 0.5 per cent lift for Lexmark, and a four per cent lift for Canon. Epson’s second objective was to measure lift in consideration for key brand attributes: speed, cost, and energy efficiencyThe campaign achieved a 5.3 per cent lift in the UK in audiences identifying Epson printers as being faster than the average competitor, as well as an increase in association with energy efficiency. The recognition of Epson as a low cost printer remained unchanged. CommentLyndsey Best, company director agenda21, the media planners for Epson, commented : “Rocket Fuel’s ability to optimise towards brand metrics (such as consideration) in real-time proved to be a significant asset to Epson’s online advertising. They were a key partner in helping Epson drive consideration among business users and buyers across the UK, Germany, France and Spain. Results such as a 56% brand lift in Germany are truly amazing. We also dug deeper to see if we could lift awareness of Epson’s core attributes such as Speed, efficiency and cost- yet again we saw great results across ALL countries.Rocket Fuel’s Real-Time Brand Optimisation solution really demonstrates true brand lift, and we look forward to working closer with them on more brand projects in 2012!”