Online video earns highest positive engagement
Simon Stanforth, group research director at Starcom MediaVest, takes a look at why advertisers can benefit from our positive engagement with online video – which is at a significantly higher level than with linear TV, VOD and recorded television.
Starcom MediaVest Group has just published research which shows that people positively engage with 94% of online video. This finding has important implications for advertising brands.
Positive engagement is defined when people have their attention mostly or entirely on the content.
The level of positive engagement with online video by people in the study is significantly higher than for linear TV, TV VoD (such as Virgin on Demand), and recorded TV.
For the research, SMG partnered with Actual Consumer Behaviour to carefully code and analyse 8,628 viewing sequences in all. Although the study was of only nine multi-person households, the rigorously produced data throws light on behaviours of people who are ahead of the technological adoption curve, but which are quickly becoming commonplace.
Cameras were placed in living areas and on people’s TV screens, and video capture software recorded mobile, laptop and desktop video usage.
The study has particular importance to advertisers because 53% of people who access 4oD, Five On-Demand or ITV Player on their computers are light TV viewers. By engaging these viewers, brands are able to engage otherwise hard to reach people.
Online video is the latest evolution of AV, and provides advertisers with a range of opportunities. These opportunities go well beyond simply adding incremental reach to a TV campaign.
Arguably more importantly, online video can help rebalance the frequency distribution between heavy and light TV viewers. The wide variety of formats available within the online video environment also enable deeper resonance with a target audience, as well as video content creation to develop ongoing rapport with current and potential customers.
This research, although only carried out with nine households, is a preliminary diagnostic of the potential strength of this medium to engage.