Study Shows Unicast's Video Commercial Delivers Lifts In Brand Metrics
- by April 18, 2004
The report, which analyzed the final results of five advertisers' campaigns--AT&T, Honda, Pepsi, Vonage, and Warner Brothers--comes as Unicast pitches the new format to online publishers and advertisers preparing for broadcast upfront negotiations. The full-screen, 30-second, broadcast-quality ad format is being positioned as a complement to advertisers' traditional TV campaigns. Advertisers' TV commercials are used with the format. Honda and AT&T have already signed on to use the format in campaigns beyond the initial test. ESPN.com intends to offer the Video Commercial, along with its ESPN Motion product, to advertisers in the upfronts.
Dynamic Logic analyzed each of the five advertisers' campaigns and compared them to its MarketNorms database of more than 1 million surveys and 10,000 campaigns. Dynamic Logic fielded aggregated responses from nearly 3,000 consumers exposed to the Video Commercial and compared them to a control group of 3,000 who didn't see the ad. The five advertisers' campaigns ran on About.com, AccuWeather, ESPN, Lycos, MSN, and UGO.
The research found that the five campaigns surpassed Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms on all metrics--brand awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent--by 5 to 11 times. Among other notable findings from the study:
*Only 27 percent of the consumers surveyed found the Video Commercial annoying, as compared to 38 percent with TV advertising (Harris Interactive), and 78 percent with pop-up ads (GartnerG2).
*The Video Commercial significantly impacted brand awareness, delivering an increase of 82 percent, which is 11 times greater than the 7 percent MarketNorms average.
*The message association metric for the Video Commercial resulted in an increase of 138 percent in association, or 5 times greater than the 24 percent average via MarketNorms.
* Brand favorability shot up 57 percent, or 9 times the MarketNorms average lift of 6 percent.
*Purchase Intent increased 63 percent, or 10 times over the MarketNorms average of 6 percent.
The consumers surveyed were asked to respond to various statements, such as: "The ad is annoying," "I like the size of the video in this ad," and "I felt like I was watching a TV commercial," with responses "strongly agree," "somewhat agree," "neither agree nor disagree," "somewhat disagree," and "strongly disagree." The majority of consumers surveyed "felt like they were watching a TV commercial"--67 percent agreed, 12 percent disagreed, and 21 percent were neutral.
*Size of video: 55 percent agreed that they liked the size of the video in the ad, while 15 percent disagreed and 30 percent were neutral.
*Visual appeal: 60 percent agreed that they enjoyed the visual appeal of the ad, while 15 percent disagreed and 25 percent were neutral.
*Sound: 55 percent agreed that sound made the ad more enjoyable, although 34 percent were neutral on this point and 11 percent disagreed with the statement.
*Annoyance: Less than 30 percent (27 percent) found the Video Commercial annoying, while 34 percent were neutral and 39 percent disagreed.
The MarketNorms database includes data on more than 10,000 campaigns that include all forms of rich media. "I think the research makes a really strong case for the Video Commercial online," said Annette Mullin, director of marketing, Unicast. "You are using TV assets and interactivity; you can connect the two; it's a medium that consumers are ready to accept." View-through, or the term used to define the rate at which people view the ad in its entirety, hovered around 32 percent. Mullin said: "Overall, we were really surprised with these findings. We've never tested anything like this--a 30-second unit."
Most surprising to Unicast, Mullin noted, was the low annoyance level. "We've tested this in the past with the Superstitial, but it's never been below 30 percent. (Unicast's Superstitial came in at 32 percent). This is 5 percent lower than that," she added.
Unicast's Video Commercial plays between Web pages via a pre-caching technology that enables the entire ad to play while viewers are in transition. A Flash component at the end of the ad enables advertisers to build interactivity into the spot.
About.com, one of the publishers testing the Video Commercial, said that Honda has re-upped on the format and Verizon is now using the ad on the About network. "We went into it saying 'let's take a look at it from the channel standpoint,'" said Mark Westlake, senior-vice president sales, About.com.
Westlake said About.com has three levels of targeting--run-of-network, channel targeting, and guide site targeting by individual Web site topics. The Video Commercial performed the best when About.com used it in channel targeting.
"Targeting by channel was much more efficient and effective--the viewer time was higher," Westlake noted. Pepsi ran in About.com's teen channel, while Vonage ran in the tech, small business, and other channels.
"What we've learned is that you need more interactivity on the commercial once it's played or while it's playing. Advertisers should take advantage of the real estate," he said. Unicast's Mullin also noted that the test advertisers were not as aggressive as they could have been in employing the Flash-enabled interactive component.
"We were really pleased with how the beta performed, and wanted to continue to use the technology and take advantage of the available inventory," said Meridee Alter, senior-vice president, media director, Rubin Postaer and Associates, Santa Monica, Calif., Honda's media buying and planning agency. Honda has since re-upped on the format, and is running it on multiple publisher sites.
"Across every metric, they were among the highest, [higher] than what we typically see," Alter said of the Video Commercial's performance. While she declined to give Honda's specific percentages, she said that the performance was 2 to 7 times higher than the MarketNorms average. "I think a lot has to do with it being a full-page. The fact that you're the only thing that a consumer sees on the page really makes a big impact; it stands out--you can't miss it even if you don't watch the whole thing," Alter noted.
Jay Krihak, group media director at WPP Group's The Digital Edge, New York which handles digital media buying and planning for AT&T, agreed: "No other online video experience comes close to TV quality. The full-page experience is much better than the in-banner and on-demand experiences."
AT&T used the Video Commercial for a corporate brand message focusing on the company's business-to-business capabilities. Its campaign ran from Feb. 9 through March 31. "This was a very easy way to test video on the Web and because it was a beta, there was a significant amount of research that was being conducted with it," Krihak noted. Since the test, AT&T has extended use of the Video Commercial to other business properties that it advertises on including Forbes.com.
AT&T used the Flash piece at the end of its spot to drive people to different parts of the AT&T site for business products and services. "Our results in terms of lift either met or exceeded our expectations in key areas including purchase consideration. Even from a response standpoint, the campaign performed much better than our previous campaigns have [in terms of] click-through rate and user interaction," Krihak explained.
As more advertisers experiment with streaming video and other formats such as the Video Commercial, more research is likely. "These results show that in fact, the majority of respondents 'felt like they were watching a television commercial,' and 'sound made the ad more enjoyable.' As advertisers begin to utilize more of the format's interactivity capabilities, I think consumer reception will grow even stronger, and the value of the ads to advertisers will expand too," said Allie Savarino, senior vice president, Unicast.
