Dive Brief:

• Toyota is partnering with EDO, a TV analytics firm co-founded by actor Edward Norton, to improve campaign performance for TV ads, according to a press release.
• The partnership continues a pilot project between the two organizations during and after 2019's Super Bowl LIII. In that effort, EDO analyzed all Super Bowl ads and found that Toyota's spot "Wizard," about the return of the GR Supra, scored the highest percentage of brand-related online searches for all advertisers during the game.
• The pilot project also analyzed Toyota's "Home for the Holidays" 90-second ad during the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting. The findings indicated the spot received the highest volume of car-related searches that week.

Dive Insight:

Gauging the impact of broadcast TV ads has been one of the most difficult tasks in attribution, since many TVs are not yet addressable, multiple people often watch TV at the same time and the user tracking capabilities do not match what is possible online or through over-the-top TV.

EDO offers one way to gauge a boost in purchase intent. It analyzes every ad on national linear TV networks 24/7, and then compares it to minute-by-minute aggregated online search actions. The idea is that searches are one of the strongest indicators of purchase intent and, if tracked alongside TV ads, can signal their impact.

TV advertising still offers one of the most effective ways to get in front of a broad audience of potential customers but continues to shrink, in part because of measurement challenges, with a recent eMarketer report forecasting that TV will account for less than 25% of total U.S. ad spending by 2020. Connected TV ad offerings and spend are growing, but the landscape is fragmented, which can hamper marketers' ability to measure and optimize campaigns. Solutions such as EDO are one way big TV advertisers can better understand the impact of their TV spots and justify the big budgets such campaigns typically command.

The EDO partnership is the latest effort by Toyota to refine its ad targeting and analytics by experiments with new technologies.

In September, Toyota launched a multichannel campaign for the Prius that offered a variety of targeting strategies. These included location-based targeting with The Weather Channel and AccuWeather as well as spots focused on Hispanic, East Asian and Asian Indian markets.

In July, it partnered with Verizon's online business to create special video, native and display ads for engaging millennial music fans, as part of livestreams of four music festivals.

A project with agency Saatchi & Saatchi in fall 2018 piloted a blockchain-optimized programmatic campaign that saw a 21% lift in performance.