• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 22, 2013

While consumers continue to perceive TV programming as superior in quality to that of online fare, their viewing habits are becoming harder to differentiate between channels.
 
That’s according to a new study from Starcom USA, which included 4,800 respondents.

Remarkably, Starcom found no statistical relationship between quality or likability scores and whether consumers believed content was from the Web or TV.

“While consumers may perceive streaming original and TV content differently, good content is good content no matter which source it originates from,” said Katie Koval, vice president of Integrated Insights at Starcom. Although survey respondents were less neutral about ads in original streaming content, ad performance was not strongly impacted by channel, Starcom determined.

In fact, consumers were actually less likely to recall ads that accompanied what they thought was TV content, according to Starcom. This might be because consumers expected -- and thus were quicker to tune out -- advertising in TV content, Starcom suggests.

Koval also noted a bias that could benefit online video publishers: “Consumers do not expect streaming original content to be good, so they really like it when they deem it is.”

As such, original content publishers have an opportunity to capitalize on what continue to be consumers' low expectations, Koval noted. How these consumer perceptions are impacting online ad sales in another question.

In the run-up to this year’s Digital NewFront events, it was predicted by some that advertisers would commit as much as $1 billion in ad buys. Yet, the general consensus at the OMMA Video conference on Tuesday seemed to be that these ad astrologers were overly optimistic.

“They were smoking something,” Mike Bloxham, executive director of the Media Behavior Institute, said.

“I think that’s hilarious,” Alexis Josephs, vice president of East Coast Sales at VEVO, said regarding the idea that advertisers would put up so much digital money so fast. “For us, it’s unfair to think that you’re going to convert immediately after the NewFront.”

As for those who thought the industry was going to book $1 billion from April to August, Josephs said: “I think [they might] be smoking many things.”

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