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While a consumer planning to make a purchase invariably turns to Search, by that time it’s already too late to woo them if your brand isn’t top-of-mind.

That’s because consumers enter that “active phase” with their top-3 brands already selected, according to recent research by Bell Media. And if your brand isn’t in that top 3, it’s not likely being searched for.

“Although purchases only take place during the active phase, brand consideration is really necessary to attract consumers when they do ultimately take that plunge,” Alicia Olson-Keating, Senior Director of Research with Bell Media, said during a recent ACA webinar. “Advertisers cannot really afford to wait until the consumer enters that phase before building the brand consideration.”

The underlying message was that marketers need to invest in upper-funnel media like TV and radio, to maintain brand health and equity, as well as create demand for their products, while using Search to capture that demand and convert it into sales.

The media company’s study, done in partnership with MediaCom Business Unit and a large automotive company, covered a three-year time period and measured TV, online, newspaper, OOH, radio and search.

The findings were specific to the automotive category – the average consumer changes vehicles only every six or seven years – meaning the “passive phase” is much longer. This served to emphasize the importance of creating brand awareness and consideration. Olson-Keating says Bell Media plans to conduct studies in other key categories so it can compare media-weight levels, message-decay rates and saturation levels, as well as identify how optimization works across media.

Other findings from this study included:

• Advertising on broadcast channels drove the majority of positive buzz, leading to a nearly 10% increase in sales.
• TV delivered $21.55 for every dollar invested while radio delivered $7.44, followed by online with $3.79 and newspaper at $1.36.
• The study also looked at social buzz and found that paid media contributes 11% to creating positive buzz. TV and Radio combined accounted for more than 90% of positive buzz, while online and newspaper made up the rest in the study sample.

Bell Media also identified optimal spend for the different media. Here are the findings:

Paid Search (SEM): between 4 and 7% of budget
Brand TV : between 11 and 23% of budget
Offer TV : between 30 and 57% of budget
Radio: between 10 and 19% of budget.