Industry body ThinkTV has uncovered new insights into how and why video advertising works for brands across different media platforms.
The research by respected marketing science academic Professor Karen Nelson-Field makes a number of significant findings that are designed to help advertisers and their agencies get the best out of video advertising.
https://youtu.be/RgGzlq-djwc
The study found that advertisements viewed by consumers on Facebook, YouTube and TV all generated a positive sales impact for brands. Of those platforms, TV advertising generated the greatest sales impact and attention, scoring significantly higher than Facebook and YouTube on both measures, with Facebook ahead of YouTube.
Key findings include:
- Using the well-established metric of short-term advertising strength or STAS to measure the impact an advertisement has on a brand’s sales, the research found that TV was 24.1 per cent stronger than YouTube and 22 per cent stronger than Facebook.
- The same pattern carried for the attention paid to an ad, which Professor Nelson-Field scored based on a number of factors including active ad viewing, active ad avoidance and passive ad avoidance, measured for each second that a commercial ran. On an aggregate of these measures, TV scored 58 points out of 100. This was 13 points higher than Facebook, which scored 45, and 38 points higher than YouTube, which scored 20 (see table and slide 19).
- The study found that screen coverage (the percentage of a screen occupied by an ad) was highly correlated to attention and sales. On this measure, TV, at 100% screen coverage, provided 10 times more “Coverage” on average than Facebook and three times more coverage than Youtube, which Professor Nelson-Field identified as one of the key reasons for TV’s ability to have the most impact on sales
- The research also showed that the size, frequency and speed of introduction of a brand or product within a commercial correlates to attention and sales impact. The ads that produced greater sales impact.
Professor Karen Nelson-Field said: “The Benchmark Series gets under the hood of all the major video advertising platforms and – using in-home, natural viewing conditions – provides a clear understanding of why certain platforms drive higher levels of attention and greater levels of advertising impact than others. It will help advertisers to make informed inventory choices when selecting media.”
Kim Portrate, CEO of ThinkTV, said: “The first thing to note about this study is that it proves video advertising works on all these major platforms – but it also shows that not all media is equal when it comes to video advertising.
“It is well-known that TV content is professionally produced, of broadcast quality and is highly brand-safe. That is in contrast to the glut of sub-premium, user-generated content that can feature heavily on social media platforms. Karen’s results help to show why this matters for brands. It’s perhaps little wonder that many social media platforms are trying to dip their toes into TV-style content themselves – put simply, it works best for brands.”
