Who won the Metro?

Have you ever wondered which ads placed in the national newspapers are the most effective at engaging readers? Newsline has partnered with Lumen Research to find out.

There’s just no ignoring the nation’s favourite budget supermarket, it seems, despite moving over to a different national newspaper this week in Who won the Metro?

Lidl once again won over the nation with a triple-whammy of ads featuring an exciting array of FMCG products, soft furnishings and football memorabilia.

However, like the England squad, the page of football memorabilia didn’t quite perform as well as its counterparts, which featured bottles of wine and children’s rugs.

While 64% of people gave consideration to a decadent candyfloss pink rug and 62% about sipping a bottle of Lidl’s finest £3.99 rose, just 49% thought about buying a reduced St George’s flag for 99p (it’s like Lidl was trying to flog as much stuff as it could before we’d even finished our group matches…)

“Viewed individually, Lidl’s ads perform at norm for their size and location,” said Mike Follett, founder of Lumen. “But viewed in aggregate the three fractional ads massively outperform a DPS for a fraction of the price.”

When combining all three ads, 82% of participants saw at least one and 57% at least two, meaning that the ads achieved a combined engagement of 7.1 seconds. Lidl also achieved 46% in unprompted recall.

“The effect of category is quite clear in the second two ads,” added Follett. “Almost everyone is interested in food promotions, while fewer people are interested in football memorabilia.

“People have an ability to ignore ads which they are not interested in without even looking directly at them. This is important to consider as it can have a huge effect on the standout of the ad.”