DETROIT, Feb. 9, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compuware Gomez (Nasdaq:CPWR) today announced the inaugural Gomez Big Game Advertiser Web Benchmark, a first-of-its-kind ranking that takes into account the web site performance of brands that advertised during Sunday's Super BowlTM.
To compute the winners and losers, the Gomez Big Game Advertiser Web Benchmark supplements the rankings of Super BowlTM commercials from USA Today's Ad Meter and TIME magazine by incorporating the speed and availability of each brand's campaign web site in the 18 hours following the game.
Snickers and HomeAway lead the new benchmark. The full rankings can be viewed online at http://benchmarks.gomez.com/big-game.php.
After spending millions of dollars to create and run ads in the Super BowlTM to build their brands, advertisers increasingly drive consumers to web sites to create lead generation and revenue opportunities. The performance of those web sites plays a vital role in the success of these marketing campaigns.
However, as evidenced in the Big Game Advertiser Web Benchmark, many advertisers' web sites were slow, or worse, temporarily unavailable, due to traffic generated by the ads.
Recently published industry research has demonstrated that poor web site performance during peak traffic has a direct and negative impact on business, with 78 percent of consumers switching to a competitor's web site because they encountered slowdowns, errors or transaction problems. Advertisers with poorly-performing web sites risk brand damage, lost revenues and squandered investments.
"Web site performance often becomes more fragile under peak traffic loads," said Matt Poepsel, Vice President, Performance Strategies, Gomez division, Compuware. "The Big Game Advertiser Web Benchmark highlights that strong web performance precisely when you and your consumers are counting on it most is just as important to advertising success as clever, funny and well-executed TV commercials. It can damage a brand and ultimately a business to run a creative ad that drives visitors to a web site that turns them away."
To compile the ranking, Compuware Gomez monitored the performance of the campaign web sites featured in Super BowlTM TV commercials, testing them for response time (how fast the page loaded) and availability (success of page loading). These two metrics were combined with USA Today's Ad Meter rankings, which measure the popularity of the commercials, and TIME's listings, which were assessed by the magazine's TV critic. Scores on each of the four criteria were ranked and averaged to arrive at the final Big Game Advertiser Web Benchmark results. Complete results and details on scoring and the full methodology are available online.
"We're looking at a paradigm shift in the world of marketing, and specifically in regards to the Super BowlTM of mass media, well, the Super BowlTM," said Greg Braun, Executive Creative Director of Team Detroit, a WPP agency. "The best of these commercials are going to engage on the web after the Big Game has come and gone, and the consumer's experience with those web sites will be a direct reflection of the brand."
Gomez, the web performance division of Compuware, provides the industry's leading solutions for optimizing the performance, availability, and quality of web and mobile applications. The on-demand Gomez platform integrates solutions for web load testing, web performance management, web cross-browser testing, and web performance business analysis that test and measure web and mobile applications from the "outside-in" – across all users, browsers, devices, and geographies – using a global network of over 100,000 locations. When combined with Compuware Vantage, Gomez offers the industry's only solution for optimizing application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet. Over 2,500 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises – including 12 of the top 20 most visited US web sites – use Gomez solutions to increase revenue, build brand loyalty, and decrease costs.
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Compuware Corporation
Founded in 1973, Compuware provides software, experts and best practices to ensure applications work well and deliver business value. Compuware solutions optimize application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet for leading organizations around the world, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com.
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