Effectiveness of advertisements remains high across all VOD ad loads, according to an industry study of video-on-demand (VOD) advertising.
VOD programming offers specific advantages for brand marketers to effectively engage consumers, according to the Phase II study of the Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP), an industry-wide research initiative to measure the impact of advertising within free VOD.
The study, which examined the viewing behaviour of more than 1,000 consumers, revealed that advertising within a VOD environment has a positive impact on the level of engagement of consumers, enabling agencies, cable operators and networks to leverage full, linear TV ad loads, while allowing advertisers to utilise longer-form approaches that can serve as avenues for enhanced creativity.
Conducted at unprecedented scale with television programming from 11 AAMP member broadcast and cable networks and branded messaging from 10 national advertisers across six categories, the AAMP study revealed four basic themes:
Advertisements within a VOD context statistically have the same impact, no matter what the size of the ad load; Because consumers view VOD as television, they accept advertising on VOD as a logical part of the on-demand experience; On-demand television has a positive effect on consumers’ sense of control over content and advertising; and VOD provides opportunities for increased ad durations that can foster greater storytelling and information sharing by advertisers.
“When it comes to advertising, the ‘TV Environment’ absolutely matters,” said Bill Koenigsberg, president, CEO and founder of Horizon Media. “If there is one finding from this study that is particularly relevant to the media industry, it’s this: consumers will watch, recall and respond even to heavy loads of ads within VOD programming.”
Conducted by Ipsos OTX, Phase II of the AAMP study tested three different VOD ad loads within 19 primetime TV shows or segments of 30 minutes each. The test formats included: a “light” load with three minutes of inventory; a “moderate” load of five and one-half minutes of advertising; and a “heavy” load which contained eight minutes of advertising. In addition, the study tested a second version of the “light” load that included a 90-second ad unit. All groups were benchmarked against the standard eight-minute linear ad load.
Participants watched comedy, drama and reality programming that contained ads from various categories such automotive, consumer products, financial services, pharmaceutical, retail and technology. The tests were conducted in custom-built media labs in New York and Los Angeles, and utilised a set-top box VOD interface that was custom-built by NDS. Consumers used a specially created mobile handset app to record their experiences while viewing; in addition, in-depth follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 participants.
