01.06.2015

Facebook and GfK win IAB Europe Research Award

​IAB Europe has selected GfK and Facebook as the winners of the social media category for their annual research awards.

The prize was awarded for GfK and Facebook’s innovative work on how to measure digital advertising effectiveness more accurately – with initial studies showing that Facebook Mobile ads can drive similar levels of impact on sales as TV campaigns.

Traditionally, research on digital ad effectiveness has used viewtags to identify panel members exposed to a digital advertisement. This assumes each person uses a single browser on a single device and is increasingly unreliable in a world where people use multiple devices. In particular, ads served within apps are completely invisible to these viewtags.

GfK and Facebook therefore developed a method to use login data to enable comprehensive cross-device measurement on a single source panel while maintaining strong privacy protection. The primary objective of this work is accurate measurement of advertising effectiveness - but the approach provides a platform on which other kinds of study of mobile internet behaviors could be conducted.

In an IAB press release, Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor for IAB Europe, said: “Congratulations to all of our 2015 winners, whose projects will become part of IAB Europe’s best practice libraries, used and referenced by industry professionals. The quality of entries continues to improve each year, demonstrating the importance of research for industry development.”