Ad Tech Companies Measure Efficacy Of Ad Council’s COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign

In February, the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative, together with 300 brand partners and the Centers for Disease Control, launched the “It’s Up To You” campaign. Their goal: educate and help audiences, particularly communities of color who have been hit hardest by the pandemic, feel confident about vaccination once it’s available to them.

Now, a group of four ad tech companies has convened to measure the reach and impact of the campaign’s linear TV and out-of-home (OOH) ads with the ultimate goal of maximizing effectiveness and informing TV strategies. TVSquared, Upwave, Kinetiq and Ace Metrix are measuring the “It’s Up To You” campaign 24 hours a day to gather insights on delivery, awareness and performance, campaign-wide and by specific audience segments.

In early March, the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative kicked off the “It’s Up To You” campaign nationwide across broadcast TV, digital, radio and social media, with media companies and social platforms such as Adobe, Apple, BET, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Walmart and TikTok releasing custom content and donating media to support the message. As of February 25, the initiative raised over $52 million, and the Ad Council’s COVID-19 efforts alone resulted in over 47 billion impressions, $445 million in donated media value and nearly 33 million visits to Coronavirus.gov.

TVSquared will determine the campaign’s most effective days, times, networks, programs, genres, publishers and creatives for reach and driving response. Upwave will provide in-flight campaign measurement of branding metrics, while Kinetiq is quantifying audience impression and media value of each ad occurrence across 210 designated market areas (DMAs). Lastly, Ace Metrix is letting viewer reaction to video ads determine the effectiveness of ad creative.

The Ad Council and COVID Collaborative’s efforts to communicate vaccine options to the wider public came as nearly 40 percent of people remained undecided on whether to get vaccinated or not, according to research fielded by Ipsos Public Affairs in February. The findings showed that black and Hispanic Americans who are undecided are significantly less confident they have sufficient information to inform their decision about getting a COVID-19 vaccination. In addition, 75 percent of undecided consumers want information to address their vaccine questions.

According to the most recent data from the CDC, 16.4 percent of the US population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.