Success with CNN.com Europe
Working with Kognitio to understand customers' needs and preferences |
|
How CNN.com Europe and its partners use Kognitio to research
the impact of tailored content
Empowering Intelligence
Acquiring and retaining online customers is increasingly challenging
with the ever-expanding sources of online news, business reporting,
political commentary, entertainment, and information about the weather
and sporting events. Selling to the online population is difficult
for a number of reasons, but chief among them is the fragmentation
of the audience and the difficulty in understanding their individual
needs and preferences. Customers demand constantly updated and relevant
content, and a detailed view of events as they unfold. Advertisers
and partners recognise the potential power of linking campaigns across
multiple channels including television and the Internet, but until
now they have been in the dark regarding accurate online customer
analysis.
Key information on the user experience and site performance
CNN provided Kognitio with a set of key business questions for
which they needed detailed and specific answers.
For the site overall and for co-branded partner sections, CNN wanted
to look at areas such as advertising revenue, affinity between channels,
traffic patterns and segmentation of user behaviour. With broad expertise
in providing detailed analysis for several major international media,
airline and telecommunications companies, Kognitio was able to
tailor a Kognitio Mining Services offering to meet the expectations
of CNN's analysts.
In addition to providing analysis of users, visits and visitors
by dimensions such as behavioural segment, geography, referrer, day
of week, time of day, and search pattern, CNN's analysts wanted to
provide one of its premier partners, with insights into the user
experience within the partner's sponsored sub-section.
"For CNN, interactive advertising is not just about click through
rates," remarked Peter Wilson, director of interactive sales,
Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNN. "As a majority of our larger
deals combine TV with interactive we want to be able to offer a detailed
level of analysis of our clients' sponsorships to compliment the
depth of research CNN TV is able to offer. It is important to be
able to qualify the role of a sponsorship on CNN.com Europe and to
do so in a way in which we can take this understanding and apply
it to our clients' business to improve results."
Immediate Business Benefits
Within six weeks of initiating work, the Kognitio WX/WebAnalytics
service was live. Pre-defined daily/weekly/monthly reports are delivered
to CNN business managers containing information regarding CNN.com
Europe and the sub-sections sponsored by their advertising partners.
Simultaneously, Kognitio held WX/MiningServices workshop sessions
with those same business managers to transfer skills so that they
could run ad-hoc reports and analyses without additional assistance.
Analyses conducted by CNN and Kognitio gave section sponsors/partners
powerful insights into customer behaviour and provided usage profiles
that would have been difficult and expensive to achieve by other
means.
Results.
Kognitio and CNN were able to present an analysis that showed
users from many prominent Fortune 500 companies were actively
visiting the advertiser-sponsored sections on CNN.com Europe.
(Chart A)
Visitors to the advertiser's sponsored section also viewed a wide
range of content and news areas on CNN. Analyzing where the visitors
spent their time on CNN.com Europe before and after visiting the
tailored section enables CNN and the advertiser to sharpen the media
plan for the site in order to strengthen the partner's message. (Chart
B)
Users of the bespoke content showed a propensity for staying at
CNN longer than users who did not visit that section. (Chart C)
Partners who sponsored sections discovered that usage was well-above
initial projections, and were able to see the referring sites, propensity
to bookmark that particular section, behavioural segments, popular
content areas, content affinity and peak usage periods thanks to
the intelligence developed by CNN and Kognitio analysts.
Kognitio and CNN - Delivering intelligence and insight.
"In order to make a success of CNN's initiative of developing
bespoke content on sections of CNN.com Europe, the research department
needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the site and pinpoint
areas for development. The level and range of data required to achieve
this would be extensive as there were a number of audiences, combining
internal personnel, with advertisers and their agencies, all of whom
needed to know whether their objectives were being met," Franck
Buge, research director of CNN Europe, Middle East and Africa. "We
have outsourced this service in order to bring in additional analytical
resources, providing in-depth analyses on a diverse set of questions
and areas of focus."
CNN's partners, advertisers and their agencies gain access to a
potential audience of 2.5 million users per month across the world,
with the majority of that audience concentrated in Europe. It is
paramount to the success of CNN, content providers, advertisers and
agencies that the audience is well understood and that the needs
and wants of the audience are analyzed and understood on a timely
basis and in detail.
"When Kognitio and CNN began to discuss the possibility of
working together we were surprised at how well CNN's needs for flexible,
sophisticated and market driven analytics and reporting matched up
with Kognitio abilities to deliver on those requirements," said
John K. Thompson, vice president worldwide marketing, Kognitio. "CNN's
market research department has the mission of supporting CNN's client
and partner facing departments with intelligence and information
that clearly explains the value of accessing CNN's blue chip client
base. Together, CNN and Kognitio work closely with the advertising
sales organization and other groups in CNN to produce analyses that
illustrate CNN's deep understanding of the dynamic needs of its audience
and its partners."
The in-depth knowledge and skill of the CNN and Kognitio staff
members, coupled with detailed, action-oriented analyses and consistent
reporting from Kognitio, provides the intelligence and insights
to show that CNN's online offerings are delivering tangible and measurable
business benefits. CNN's staff and partners now have previously unobtainable
data on their audience in descriptive and predictive forms.
They know who is viewing what content, when, why and most importantly,
how to appeal to them.
back
to case study home
back
to top
