Research Reveals Key To Effective Online Video Ads
The impact of online video advertising varies widely, depending on whether the ad quickly reinforces the brand and differentiates from its competitors, according to the latest research analysis by Dynamic Logic.
Based on results from 108 different video campaigns, the survey measured changes in consumer attitudes for several different brands and products, including entertainment, FMCG and automotive, surveying 125,733 respondents.
“As marketers and media companies try to better utilise online video advertising to communicate with consumers, research is starting to identify what works and what doesn’t creatively,” said Suzanne Moorey-Denham, MD of Dynamic Logic (Europe).
“Our November 2006 Beyond The ClickÂŽ demonstrated the power of online video campaigns in their ability to positively move all branding metrics compared to overall MarketNormsÂŽ. With more data, we begin to see a wider range and variance in effectiveness.
“While video norms in general are positive, there are some dramatic differences in the results of the most memorable and least memorable video campaigns. For online video ads to raise awareness for a brand, communicate a message and persuade consumers to buy, the ads must first break through the clutter and, simply put, be noticed and associated with the brand.”
The chart below shows the average delta scores, or increases, for each brand metric, comparing the most noticed video campaigns, overall video norms and the least noticed video ads.
The most noticed, or most memorable, campaigns are defined as those videos that scored among the top 20% in generating online advertising awareness, while the least noticed are those campaigns that fell among the bottom 20%.
This data shows how effective, or ineffective, online video advertising can be.
Phil Christer, marketing director at Zed Media, said: “Dynamic Logic’s research confirms our own findings, that online video advertising can work extremely well but without the correct implementation, can be ineffective and wasteful.
“Video ads afford us the opportunity to really engage with a receptive audience, but engagement is the key. The ad has to be in a correctly targeted environment, the message has to be compelling and ideally work with both the brand and the media in which it is placed. It is not enough just to put your TV ad in an online ad any more, they are unlikely to deliver the results that a carefully target video ad will do.
“It’s important that all the media channels that are utilised in advertising campaigns, be it online or offline compliment one other. We can see from the research here that a memorable video ad can be a key part of this process.”
Of those tested, some of the key factors that made video ad campaigns more memorable include: creative being intrinsically linked to the brand, utilising the unique features of the web to create an interactive experience with the brand, and entertainment.
Conversely, video ads that didn’t deliver did not engage and establish relevance quickly, did not make it clear what was being asserted in the video, and key points embedded in the audio were missed, as people often have it switched off.
While it is critical to ensure that video advertising gets noticed and is linked to the brand, so it has the opportunity to be effective, this alone may be insufficient. The ultimate goal of advertising is to change or reinforce behaviour and attitudes about the brand, either immediately or at some point in the future, so online video ads need to communicate something that reinforces brand usage or differentiates it from competitors.
Dynamic Logic: 020 7152 4004 www.dynamiclogic.com