Appinio x The Trade Desk

Bridging Brand Strategy and Media Activation

The Trade Desk is a leading global advertising technology company, committed to advancing a more open, transparent, and data-driven advertising ecosystem. Its self-service, cloud-based platform offers powerful tools to create, manage, and optimize programmatic digital campaigns across devices.

The platform enables brands and agencies to reach audiences with greater precision and impact while helping to deliver a better, more relevant ad experience for consumers. Through partnerships with leading data, inventory, and publisher partners, The Trade Desk expands reach, enables more strategic decision-making, and helps advertisers drive measurable business outcomes.

Discover how The Trade Desk partnered with Appinio to turn Mental Availability methodologies into targeted media strategies and position themselves as thought leaders in the industry.

The Client Challenge

The Trade Desk focused the efforts of this study on two key global verticals: Automotive and Quick Service Restaurants (QSR). Clients in these fast-paced, highly competitive sectors constantly battle for consumer attention across a complex web of buying occasions.

The Trade Desk was looking for a way to:

Help Their Clients Elevate Beyond Traditional Demographics for Media Targeting: Shift client conversations from who consumers are to what influences them to buy and consider specific brands
Bridge Insights into Action: Create a clear pipeline linking consumer insights directly into targetable keywords, audience segments, and programmatic campaigns on The Trade Desk.
Elevate Strategic Positioning: Deliver consultative information that provides clear value to C-suite brand and marketing executives.
Position themselves as Thought Leaders with their clients and within the industry, unlocking meaningful consumer intelligence that supports more informed conversations and media planning.

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The Appinio Approach

We deployed a multi-country Mental Availability framework based on consumer choice research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. By identifying the specific needs, contexts, and motivations, known as Category Entry Points (CEPs), that prompt buyers to consider a brand or category, Appinio helped The Trade Desk build actionable thought-leadership materials that can empower their clients to execute more effective advertising campaigns.

1. Multi-Market Study Design

Appinio designed nationally representative studies tailored across the following categories:

Automotive Sector Study:

Coverage: USA, Australia, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom.
Sample: 1,000 respondents per country, targeting car owners/leasers intending to purchase a vehicle (balanced by age and gender).
Scope: Evaluated 32 to 40 distinct Category Entry Points (CEPs) alongside complete brand funnel metrics.

QSR Sector Study:

Coverage: UK, Canada, USA, Germany, France.
Sample: 800 targeted QSR category buyers and active consumers per market.
Scope: Evaluated 32 to 40 category-specific CEPs and full brand performance metrics.

2. Turning Research into Media Playbooks

Appinio enabled The Trade Desk to map consumer memory drivers directly to campaign execution. The Trade Desk translated identified CEPs into actionable audience targeting strategies on its platform, creating a repeatable proposition for automotive and QSR clients.

The Impact & Results

Through this collaboration with Appinio, The Trade Desk transformed consumer insight into a core commercial driver by:

Elevating
client
relationships
Providing
clients with
insight led
targetable
audiences
Expanding
Industry
Thought
Leadership

Key wins for The Trade Desk include:

Unlocking C-Suite Access -> Opened executive-level conversations with senior brand decision-makers, moving relationships well beyond traditional media-buying contacts.
Helping to accelerate New Business Pipeline -> Created compelling, data-backed entry points to pitch new automotive and QSR brands on strategic audience targeting.
Utilisation of white space analysis -> Uncovered new opportunities for clients by developing media strategies from the white space analysis in mental availability framework.
Proactive Macro-Economic Guidance -> Identified early opportunities to help brands navigate and mitigate ongoing category economic headwinds.
Seamless Media Translation -> Created a direct bridge from consumer psychological research to programmatic execution by converting CEPs into targetable segments on The Trade Desk.
Scaling Industry Thought Leadership: Expanded The Trade Desk's global awareness through keynote presentations at major events like the LA Auto Show, custom webinars, and client playbooks.

"Appinio's Mental Availability framework gave The Trade Desk an evidence-based way to elevate our conversations with brand leaders. Instead of talking purely about media execution, we can now show clients exactly what drives consumer choice in their category and how to target those moments directly on our platform."

Eric Stupnitsky

Senior Manager, Global Research and Insights, The Trade Desk

What is Mental Availability?

Based on the work of Professor Jenni Romaniuk (of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science), Mental Availability analysis is a measure of how easily and readily a brand comes to mind in a specific buying scenario (CEPs).

Probability, not binary: Unlike simple brand awareness (where someone either knows a name or does not), mental availability measures how easily a brand springs to mind across various occasions.
Category Entry Points (CEPs): The triggers, needs, or situations that cause a buyer to look for a product, such as feeling thirsty, having a relaxed night in, or hosting a party.

Memory Structures: High mental availability means a brand is linked to many different entry points in a consumer's brain

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"Mental Availability is powerful because it gives clients a fresh way to understand where and when their brands can win. It connects consumer insight with action, helping them identify the moments that matter. For The Trade Desk it was great delivering insights and see them being used to form actionable media strategies and strengthen their thought leadership across the sectors."