Brand environment is still a key consideration for media buyers when they are placing online video advertising campaigns, according to new research from Collective Video.
81% of 140 media buyers surveyed for the latest bi-annual report into the VoD (Video on-Demand) industry stated that context – where the brand messaging is aligned to the content it’s being placed around – was a key factor for their VoD campaigns. This compared to just 18% who said that if the target audience was engaged, they didn’t care which website an ad was running on.
The UK’s largest premium online video advertising network also questioned media buyers on their primary measurement for judging an engaged viewer.
51% said view-through rates, the number of people who watch video ads in full, while 39% felt click-through rates were the most important consideration. 10% used unique user numbers.
The UK Online Video Advertising Market Report shows that VoD is still being used mainly to provide incremental reach to TV advertising campaigns and increase brand awareness. 59% said that incremental reach was their primary objective, while 37% said brand awareness.
“Online video advertising is becoming more transparent than ever before, with a defined set of engagement metrics including view-through rates and unique viewers,” said Jamie Estrin, General Manager of Collective. “Given VoD is largely used as a branding medium, it’s still rather alarming to see that 39% of media buyers are measuring engagement on click-through rates, but we expect this number to fall dramatically by next year as more advertisers track view-through rates and receive greater transparency about their ad placements. Our results show that media buyers overwhelmingly feel relevant content and brand environment is crucial.”
The outlook for the industry remains strong, with 62% of buyers saying they expect their VoD spend to grow by 25% or more over the next six months.
Over a quarter (26%) of respondents said that they are allocating £75,000 or more on average for VoD campaign budgets.
69% of media buyers now dedicate at least half of their budgets to non-broadcaster platforms. This is a 23% increase from the survey 12 months ago and a 10% increase from the last bi-annual survey in March this year.
“We can see that brands are keen to make further inroads into the evolving VoD space by using a wider selection of publishers. This is reflected by the continued increase in ad spend and expanding budgets,” said Jack Wallington, Head of Industry Programmes at the IAB. “Collective Video’s latest report shows that the UK’s fastest growing ad format remains strong in 2011.”
www.collectivelondon.com/