• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, January 25, 2012

What do you get when you combine a $500,000 online video buy with a $2.6 million TV campaign? A 14% percent boost in reach, an 18% jump in frequency and an 11% reduction in the cost of the impressions. Or so says YuMe, the online video network that partnered with Nielsen to study effectiveness of a cross-platform campaign. YuMe and Nielsen worked with one of media agency PHD’s clients, known only as “major consumer health care brand,” on the study that analyzed a Sept. 2011 marketing effort.

The result was that the combo campaign increased reach in the desired 35 to 54 demo by 7 percentage points, with the marketer reaching more than 6 million additional consumers in its target audience that it wasn’t reaching with TV alone. In total, the marketer reached nearly 9 million people across screens. What’s more, YuMe said the efficiency of the online video ad spend was nearly double that of the TV spend in terms of the cost needed to reach the potential customers. Other metrics improved too when online video was added. Brand recall jumped 22% and message recall 31%.

Let’s bear in mind though that such metrics should rise when more media is added to a campaign. That’s the point of multi-venue marketing — the advertiser can reach consumers in different places and in different ways and can maximize the message then. By adding online video, more consumers were exposed to the campaign. In fact, YuMe said the number of people exposed to the marketing three or more times rose by 31%, and those exposed to the campaign six or more times jumped 52%. (As an aside, if I’m exposed to a campaign six times I’ve pretty much reached my limit with the brand, FYI!).

Nevertheless, the data is noteworthy because online video, as a medium, is on the cusp of massive growth. Ad dollars are on track to rise 40% this year to hit $3.1 billion, and some marketers have said they’ll move money from TV to online video. Research like this is useful as it helps agencies and advertisers to see how online video might fit into and enhance a TV buy.