The campaign delivered stand-out results, turbocharging engagement for Co-op’s summer 2022 food ranges and community fund

GumGum, the contextual-first, digital advertising platform, partnered with leading grocery chain, Co-op, with the aim of supersizing engagement around its summer 2022 food ranges such as barbeque and ice-cream products.

The campaign was designed to raise awareness and brand perception around the Co-op Community Partnerships Fund which supports a variety of local causes across the UK. It also set out to target environmentally and socially conscious audiences whilst elevating Co-op’s reach thanks to contextual targeting of relevant, brand-safe content across GumGum’s suite of premium lifestyle titles.

Verity™, GumGum’s proprietary contextual intelligence platform – the first independent ad tech platform to achieve the Media Rating Council’s content level accreditation for contextual analysis, brand safety and suitability – was used to align the ad units in relevant environments across lifestyle news, entertainment and food and drink content. Compelling ads highlighted Co-op’s community and product ethos in a fleet of high-calibre online publications with large audiences; including BBC Good Food, Ideal Home, Woman & Home, Time Out and Empire magazines. Meanwhile, a tactic known as ‘conquesting’ was used which involved aligning Co-op creative natively around relevant competitor content.

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Four GumGum high-impact ad formats were selected to amplify Co-op’s messaging: the Desktop Skin, the In-Screen and In-Image Expandable and the Mobile In-Screen Frame. The Desktop Skin is the largest display format available across web pages with left, right and a top panel surrounding the content. The In-Screen and In-Image Expandable remain in view at the bottom of the screen or image as users scroll through, expanding on interaction; and the Mobile In-Screen Frame –the top performing format in this campaign with an engagement rate of 53.4% – borders the screen for a few seconds and then drops into a footer. Co-op and GumGum also worked with creative agency Kin + Carta to ensure creatives were animated to showcase multiple images of food and key messaging.

“Verity’s razor-sharp AI tools enabled us to analyse context with ground-breaking sophistication,” explains Peter Wallace, General Manager, EMEA, GumGum. “Our approach is unique versus other contextual intelligence solutions in the market in that it includes Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision for image recognition, rather than relying on keywords alone. We were able to ensure that ads appeared in hyper-relevant environments, with high-impact creative whilst steering clear of unsafe content and outperforming all benchmarks,”

“Exceeding all targets, this partnership just goes to show what can be achieved with sophisticated contextual targeting, hyper-relevance and creative cut through at scale,” Peter Wallace continues. “The collaboration provided a number of learnings for future campaigns as well as improving awareness and positively shifting brand perceptions.”

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GumGum also partnered with Oracle Moat to optimise viewability and engagement of the campaign. Additional data from On Device Research indicated a significant uptick in brand trustworthiness, association with community values and spontaneous mentions among the target audience. Other stand-out results included:

• +4pts perception that Co-Op is a trustworthy brand
• +3pts perception that Co-Op is a brand with “quality food offering” and “raises funds for local communities”
• +7pts spontaneous mentions of Co-Op among the target audience of socially conscious consumers
• 56% viewability for In-Screen Expandables (vs 85% benchmark)
• 86% viewability for Desktop Skins (vs 85% benchmark)

Carolina Turner-Suarez, Account Director at Amplifi, the media agency that Co-Op partnered with for the campaign, said, “The campaign married high-impact ads with contextual precision – driving standout results across engagement, dwell time, viewability and attention, and all whilst blocking invalid traffic. We also saw uplifts in brand perception with all placements visible, relevant and brand safe – resulting in outstanding impact and performance and, importantly, greater awareness of the Co-op Community Partnerships Fund.”

GumGum is a contextual-first, global digital advertising platform that captures people’s attention, without the use of personal data. We believe that an advertising ecosystem based on understanding a consumer’s active frame of mind rather than behaviour builds a more equitable and safer future for consumers, publishers, and advertisers alike. Founded in 2008, GumGum is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and operates in 19 markets worldwide. For more information, please visit www.gumgum.com.

Co-op is one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives with interests across food, funerals, insurance and legal services. Owned by millions of UK consumers, the Co-op operates over 2,500 food stores, over 800 funeral homes and provides products to over 5,000 other stores, including those run by independent co-operative societies and through its wholesale business, Nisa Retail Limited.

Employing almost 60,000 people, the Co-op has an annual turnover of over £11 billion and is a recognised leader for its social goals and community-led programmes. The Co-op exists to meet members’ needs and stand up for the things they believe in.

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