Electric Symphony Media Honored as a Finalist in 2022 The Drum Digital Advertising Awards

Electric Symphony Media is recognized by The Drum Digital Advertising Awards as a finalist in the category of Not-for-Profit/Charity Category for our work with American Friends of the Hebrew University.

The Drum Digital Advertising Awards is a global awards program that recognizes the best technology and digital media in advertising. With 38 total categories, ESM entered the Not-for-Profit/Charity category, for work with nonprofit organization, AFHU, and we were shortlisted among two other top agency contenders. Winners are set to be announced on April 21, 2022.

ESM is honored to have our work recognized alongside global agencies and businesses. As a boutique firm, we pride ourselves on creating innovative and effective media campaigns that are just as competitive as much larger organizations—without the red tape. We care deeply about developing lasting partnerships with each of our clients in order to ensure that we deliver award worthy work that is precisely tailored to their unique goals.

American Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) is a national, not-for-profit organization in support of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel’s foremost center of higher education and research. The organization is committed to tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges in fields such as health and medicine, cybersecurity, and diplomacy through research and innovation.

At the start of their 2021 fiscal year, which begins in October, AFHU approached ESM with the goal to drive engagement with their brand among unfamiliar and unexposed users, through ad engagements, increased web traffic and organic inquiries. In addition to increasing engagements, their ultimate goal was to create user retention and acquisition through donations to support the research done by the Hebrew University.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic challenges that followed, we were able to pivot and adapt to adjust the client’s digital presence and remain focused on new user acquisition, while not negating the value of their existing members. Over the years, ESM has repeatedly affirmed our commitment to the power advertising-as-advocacy can wield through our work with organizations like AFHU.

ESM’s approach began with understanding the client’s interest and primary goal of driving new users towards the brand. Furthermore, we wanted to develop a media strategy and channel plan that struck a balance between acquisition efforts and continued engagement among their existing community. This led us to developing a campaign approach that strategically allocated budget towards two individual campaign efforts – differentiated as a “Retention” campaign and an “Acquisition” campaign.

To target users the most precisely and effectively, we organized AFHU’s first-party data into four distinct categories: Alumni, Donors, Social Media Acquired Leads, and Web-Owned (Retargeting) users. From here, we assessed the size of these first-party owned lists and mapped each size against the estimated potential reach and average donation size, in order to determine the maximum donation opportunity for each audience cohort. This allowed us to support a percentage of the total spend recommendation for each audience. We then established a minimum threshold for effectiveness, gauged by impression delivery based on ESM’s own standard frequency cap.

This refined approach allowed us to optimize in ways that were not previously possible. With newly-segmented audience cohorts in both the Acquisition and Retention campaigns, we had the opportunity to individualize creative and messaging, adjust targeting, and modify elements such as frequency, device, and channel at the audience level.

Additionally, the differentiation between the Acquisition and Retention audiences created a more clearly defined path through the funnel. In the past, 1st party list data and retargeting audiences were treated as part of Acquisition efforts; now, we are able to move users in the funnel in real time based on in-platform engagement and site activity. This allows us to deliver relevant consideration and conversion-oriented messaging at the exact point at which a user shifts from an unexposed user to a newly acquired user.

This initiative was the most highly targeted, strategically allocated, and successful (as it relates to media metrics) campaign to date. Since the implementation of this media plan in the Fall of 2020, we’ve seen a dramatic increase across all KPI’s: from media performance and engagements to web traffic and the value of user on site activity. In total, the campaign delivered over 15.7 million impressions, over 289,000 clicks, and over 217,000 total engagements.

Learn more about this work with AFHU by visiting https://esmtheagency.com/clients/afhu-case-study/

ESM is a media partner that helps brands and agencies uncover unique value in marketing investments. We believe the most successful media campaigns interweave the art of past experience with the science of data analytics. ESM offers end to end media planning, activation, and reporting services. The agency’s tech stack provides a connective thread across all channels, but as a team we emphasize the importance human experience plays in predicting outcomes. Whether it’s traditional, digital, or emerging media, the knowledge ESM has gained from running campaigns that are large, small, geographically diverse, with different KPIs, goals, and assets gives us a strong library of learnings to apply to future activity.