(Source: PRNewswire)RESTON, Va., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, in partnership with dunnhumbyUSA, an international leader in building sales and brand value for consumer goods and retail companies, today released the results of an early series of studies it has conducted into the effectiveness of online advertising in building retail sales of consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, revealing that the Internet can be as effective an advertising medium as television advertising. Over the course of twelve weeks, online ad campaigns with an average reach of 40 percent of their target segment successfully grew retail sales of the advertised brands by an average of 9 percent. This compares to an average lift of 8 percent for TV advertising as measured by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) and published in their seminal research paper "How Advertising Works."

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Offline Sales Lift from CPG Brand Advertising

Comparison Between TV and Internet

Total U.S.

Source: Information Resources, Inc. and comScore, Inc.

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TV__ Internet

(IRI)__ (comScore)

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+8%__ +9%

Sales Lift__ over 12 months__ over 3 months

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Percent of Campaigns

Showing Statistically

Significant Lift__ 36%__ 80%

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The comScore dunnhumbyUSA research was conducted by examining the retail purchasing behavior of members of the comScore panel of 2 million Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to monitor their online behavior. The studies focused on the 200,000 comScore and dunnhumbyUSA panelists who were members of supermarket loyalty programs and whose retail buying behavior was measured through point-of-sale UPC scanners when the panelists presented their membership cards at the checkout lanes of participating supermarket stores. By comparing the retail purchasing of comScore panelists who were exposed to online advertising campaigns for a variety of CPG brands with the purchase behavior of groups of "control" panelists who were not exposed to such campaigns, comScore was able to isolate the impact of the advertising campaigns in lifting retail sales of the advertised brands. The groups of control panelists were selected to be demographically and behaviorally similar to the exposed panelists prior to the start of the campaigns. The use of such an analytical design is commonplace in media research and helps ensure that the impact of the advertising campaigns being evaluated can be isolated and accurately measured.