The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads

Video In Rich Media Ads More Likely To Lead Customers To Purchase

Video in rich media ads can make or break a campaign. The DoubleClick benchmark study released by Google recently suggests that rich media ad formats that contain video "overwhelmingly" outperform other types of creative media ad, such as images and simple animation Flash.

The study, "The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads", measures purchase intent, but not necessarily through the ad. Findings suggests that people who see a video in a rich media ad are more likely to make the purchase.

This study tapped Dynamic Logic data - market data from thousands of campaigns - to determine the type of creative ad formats that produce the best results. Dynamic Logic serves up surveys to a consumer after they see a random ad, and correlates the results to whether or not they viewed the ad.

Rich media ads containing video on average appear to increase purchase intent by 1.16%, compared with a controlled group that did not see an ad. Compare that with simple Flash at 0.26%, and there's a huge difference.

The study suggests that driving purchase requires advertisers to run more rich media with video and fewer simple Flash units. The fact that simple Flash ads dominate the Web ad content demonstrate "a misalignment" of ad formats when it comes to brands setting and reaching ad goals. Rich media with video drives success more than four times that of Flash.

Interestingly, people who see rich media ads on average seem to favour the brand with the video, according to the study. Exposing audiences to one rich media ad with video seem to result in a 2.30% increase in favouring a brand. In contrast, simple Flash shows the poorest results - 0.15% - at driving favour for the brand.

The study suggests delivering a rich media ad with video as the first ad exposure to the online audience, and when budgets are tight, switching to simple Flash or image formats to get positive results. Use DoubleClick DART for Advertisers (DFA) to swap creative ads without having to send new ad tags to publishers. And don't let arbitrary ad-serving budget allocations, such as 15% of media, prevent you from running the most effective ad formats. Instead, factor media fees and rich media fees in together and optimize from there.

Brand metrics were compared for more than 4,000 campaigns across a wide variety of industry verticals through 2008, as tracked via Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms marketing effectiveness database. Campaigns were included in the study if they met two criteria. The first: the assets included at least one of four ad formats: simple Flash, JPG/GIF, rich media with video, and rich media without video. The second: the questionnaire used standard MarketNorms branding questions.

Download the full report HERE.

DoubleClick Online Display Ad Benchmarks Report is out!

The DoubleClick Benchmarks Report is a free report of industry benchmarks that helps marketers, agencies, and publishers evaluate the performance of online display advertising campaigns.

DoubleClick benchmarks are derived from a robust data set of metrics across DART for Advertisers (DFA), based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation. This data set includes hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions.

Data shown in the report represent activity of a wide range of ad formats for DFA advertisers in the U.S. unless otherwise indicated. The majority of data are from January 2008 to December 2008. The data on interaction rates and interaction times are from April 2008 to December 2008.

Some highlights from the report:

- Overall U.S. Performance Norms:

• CTR: 0.10%
• Interaction Rate: 2.11%
• Avg Interaction Time: 10.29 secs
• Expansion Rate: 2.46%
• Video Complete Rate: 54.52%
• Avg Display Time: 32.13 secs
• Avg Expanding Time: 6.50 secs

- Clicks and interaction rates correlate strongly to ad size: Larger creative sizes tend to produce higher click-through rates and/or interaction rates.

- Video outperforms non-video ads: DoubleClick Rich Media video ad units generally experience higher click-through rates and interaction rates than non-video DoubleClick rich media ad formats.

- Overall Rich Media Performance Norms:

• CTR: 0.09%
• Interation Rate: 2.11%
• Avg Interaction Time: 10.29 secs
• Expansion Rate: 2.46%
• Video Complete Rate: 54.52%
• Avg Display Time: 32.13 secs
• Avg Expanding Time: 6.50 secs

- APAC Overall Performance Norms (CTR):

• Australia: 0.10%
• China: 0.18%
• Hong Kong: 0.21%
• India: 0.20%
• Malaysia: 0.29%
• New Zealand: 0.14%
• Singapore: 0.20%

- APAC Overall Performance Norms (Interation Rate):

• Australia: 3.70%
• Hong Kong: 4.72%
• Malaysia: 4.49%
• Singapore: 3.80%

Full report is downloadable HERE.

Dell Tabs into Cool Social Media Marketing

Dell Singapore recently launched a new social media marketing campaign, Dell Swarm. The idea is the more buyer of a specific Dell laptop within a time range, the cheaper the price of the laptop becomes for everyone. The campaign closely embed facebook, twitter and youtube, allowing users to easily share "the ugly to buy" with friends and families, hopefully attracting more buyers creating a win-win situation for everyone.

Expandable Masthead on YouTube

This is YouTube's first expandable Masthead banner. It also embedded the live Twitter feed into the Flash banner. Click on the ad above to experience the richness of this ad and make sure you play that mini-game and try your braking response.

comScore Data on Widget Ad Performance

Summary Findings - a total of 625M people, representing 65.5% of the WW Internet User, viewed or engaged with a widget in June 2008.

1. Asia Pacific
* Widget Viewers = 198,961,000
- 55.4% reach of Asia Pacific online population
- 1,446,333,000 usage days
* Engaged Applications = 13,359,000 widget engagers
- 3.7% reach
- 57,242,000 usage days

2. India
* Widget Viewers = 25,364,000
- 86.3% reach of Australia online population
- 201,562,000 usage days
* Engaged Applications = 1,986,000 widget engagers
- 6.8% reach
- 8,193,000 usage days

3. Australia
* Widget Viewers = 7,716,000
- 69.9% reach of Australia online population
- 54,168,000 usage days
* Engaged Applications = 2,138,000 widget engagers
- 19.4% reach
- 9,947,000 usage days

4. Singapore
* Widget Viewers = 1,956,000
- 84.7% reach of Singapore online population
- 16,999,000 usage days
* Engaged Applications = 338,000 widget engagers
- 14.6% reach
- 1,282,000 usage days

Note: comScore Widget Metrix reports on the number of persons who have viewed a unique web widget. In the case of Facebook widgets, comScore Widget Metrix reports on the number of persons who have actively engaged a unique web widget.


Measure Definitions -

Widget Viewers The estimated number of different individuals (in thousands) that were presented or exposed to that particular widget. Widget Engagers This measure represents the number of different individuals (in thousands) that actively engaged with that particular widget. Usage Days The total number of days in the month that consumers were exposed to the widget. A consumer who viewed a specific widget on three different days would contribute 3 Usage Days to that widget's total. % Reach Defined as the percent of the online population that was exposed to a particular widget.