One of the reasons that online video marketing exists is simply that the constant advertisements that run on TV were not working anymore. People sit down at the end of the day to watch their favorite shows, and when the advertisements come on, they are usually too busy, on their way to the bathroom or surfing the web. They simply stopped being as effective an advertising form as they were before the digital boom. However, a successful form of TV ad still exists to a certain degree on the web, in the form of video ads that play during full episodes of shows on video streaming websites like Netflix. According to a new Nielsen study that was commissioned by the IAB, video ads that are being viewed online during these full episodes are proven to be much more effective than the everyday ads we see during commercial breaks on TV.
To be specific this study, sponsored by Yahoo and Microsoft Advertising, shows that these ads viewed during full episodes of shows online create a 39 percent higher recall among consumers than do TV ads. These online video ads also create a brand recall that is higher by 85 percent. Impressively, these online ads also generated a 100 percent higher message recall among consumers. This all boiled down to online video ads having an 86 percent higher general likability among consumers.
So, it seems clear that there is little competition between the two ad platforms anymore, and that online video ads played during full episodes of TV shows are the more successful choice. However, the same cannot necessarily be said for all video ads on the web. The difference in success between long-form video ads and short-form is still significant.
In fact, the study shows that long-form content viewers watched advertisements for an average of 21.4 seconds, while short-form content viewers only viewed ads at an average of 13.6 seconds. This means that long-form content viewers are viewing ads for 57 percent longer. Long-form content viewers also represent a higher completion rate, boasting a rate of 88 percent compared to 79 percent for short-form content viewers. Also, it seems that showing an ad in the middle of a video is still bringing in the highest completion, with 88 percent for long-form and 79 percent for short-form. However, post-roll ads are creeping up the ladder with a 79 percent completion rate in long-form content and 71 percent for short-form.
But what does it all boil down to? Although the different types of online video ads work at different levels and bring in different levels of success for marketers, they still trump TV ads by quite a bit. Online video advertising is still at a steady rate of growth, and a recent report from Ooyala even shows that 1.5 billion people will have watched an online video by the year 2016. Therefore, it is time for TV advertising to make way for the new way to present users with video content, because either way it is here to stay.
