Native Video Ads Outperform Pre-Roll Ads

Continuing to push the promise of scalable “native” advertising, Sharethrough just released some Nielsen-vetted data, which -- surprise, surprise -- reflects well on the model formerly known as the “advertorial.”
 
Using Nielsen’s Online Brand Effect survey tool, Sharethrough compared the effectiveness of its native video ads in affecting brand lift metrics -- like awareness, purchase intent and favorability -- with that of pre-roll video ad units.
 
The result? Sharethrough’s native video ads outperformed pre-roll ads for five advertisers, regardless of their campaign’s category or marketing objective.
 
In one case, the findings from a Jarritos campaign -- the primary marketing objective of which was to drive brand favorability – showed native ads generated 82% brand lift among users exposed to the ads. By contrast, pre-roll units generated 2.1% brand lift among users exposed to the ads.
 
For the study, Sharethrough served the same creative message in both pre-roll and native ad formats for five advertisers’ campaigns, though the pre-roll ads were restricted to 15 or 30 seconds in length.
 
Exactly what makes an ad native? “Native advertising has definitely become one of the buzz words of 2013, and the industry is still coalescing around a single, agreed-upon definition,” according to Dan Beltramo, executive vice president, product leadership for ad effectiveness at Nielsen. “For the purpose of this case study, we defined native video ads as user-initiated ads that are fully integrated into the natural site experience and do not have a limit on video length.”
 
As for whether Nielsen has found native ads to be more successful than pre-roll ads, Beltramo said: “There are too many flavors of native ads to make a general statement like that. There are many factors that play into an ad’s success -- the creative itself, the site it appears on, the frequency with which consumers see that ad.”
 
Sharethrough boasts a network of millions of blogs thanks to direct partnerships with WordPress, The Awl Network, Forbes, Thought Catalog, and other platforms.
 
Founded in 2008, Sharethrough is a privately held company based in San Francisco, Calif.

Formerly named Vizu Ad Catalyst, the Nielsen Online Brand Effect tool endeavors to capture consumer sentiment with Web polls, which ask consumers to measure how individual campaigns performed against their primary objectives.

 

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