• by Ross Fadner , December 19, 2004

Online ads that use audio and video are better for branding than ads that use more static formats, according to new research from Dynamic Logic. The research reveals that a single exposure to an audio/video ad increased brand awareness by 10 percentage points over a controlled group of consumers who were not exposed to any ads.

This jump is more than the increased brand awareness that comes from many exposures to different display formats. Three exposures to a large rectangle or square ad produced a 9 percent awareness increase, followed by an 8 percent increase in awareness for six exposures to a skyscraper unit, and a 6 percent lift in awareness after 10 exposures to a banner ad.

Dynamic Logic calculates the brand awareness increases--called "Brand Awareness Delta"--by subtracting the exposed groups' awareness percentage by that of the controlled group.

Industry professionals said it comes as no surprise that video ads have a greater branding impact than other ad units. Sarah Fay, president, Carat Interactive North America, said that clients see increases from both a branding and response perspective with rich media campaigns. But, with rich media more expensive than static ads, clients still need to figure out whether the difference in awareness is worth the extra cost. "I think that's the only thing holding back rich media formats," she said.

Andrew Snyder, ESPN.com ad sales director, said that rich media ads have performed particularly well for the company's interactive on-demand video format, ESPN Motion."The strong performance of video advertising has been consistent for ESPN.com." <> The audio/video data measured 21,679 responses to 27 ad campaigns from Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms database. MarketNorms contains results for more than 1,500 online ad campaigns conducted by Dynamic Logic from over 1.7 million respondents. The aggregated results are not adjusted for demographics, ad size, Web sites, and other factors that may contribute to brand lift.