Coca-Cola has found that online chatter, or 'buzz', has no measurable effect on short term sales.
Eric Shmidt, Coke's senior manager-marketing strategy and insights, continues to state that digital display advertising was 90% as effective as TV advertising and search 50% as effective.
But really, he sums up the mood of the study in this comment, "Digital ROI has to be a financial measure that allows us a consistent measurement of business performance over time."
Which seems to beg the question, with 61.5 million Facebook fans how can Coke (and every brand trying to catch them) truly commercialise their social presence?
Clearly there are long term brand building benefits, which should ultimately impact sales. But, as has always been the challenge with broadcast advertising, brand regard can be great until the consumer enters a store and picks up a competitor.
The key difference between traditional broadcast and digital communications, is the proximity to purchase. Whether driving from social feeds to online retail or from mobile to bricks and mortar sales. As a business focussed on driving consumer action (and ultimately driving sales), Wax believe that there is a great opportunity to 'close the loop' from off-line to on-line. Turning conversations into sales conversion by understanding the full path to purchase and thinking holistically about those tipping points where consumers become shoppers. By applying shopper-centric thinking to digital channels and using activation mechanics (from the humble voucher to 'add to basket' tools like Slingshot) we can further improve the ROI of digital as well as building brand.
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