Digital video stronger driver of brand awareness but must be tailored for greater effectiveness

Digital video advertising delivers strong brand awareness impacts in both premium (i.e. CatchUp TV) and User-Generated Content (UGC – i.e. Facebook and YouTube) environments, a new GroupM Study with Kantar has found. The findings also highlighted the importance of tailoring advertising assets to specific environments to front-load brand messaging in environments where ads may be skipped or ended prior to completion. In the study, premium non-skippable environments delivered stronger impacts on brand metrics, including key message takeaway.

The study evaluated the performance of digital video for a popular haircare brand and a premium wine brand in a study with 2,460 participants at the end of 2018.  The brand impact of in-context exposure to video ads across catch-up TV, in-stream short form, in-feed video, and UGC video environments were evaluated.

The results showed significant improvements in brand awareness after exposure to video advertising in all tested formats. However, one key difference observed between UGC and premium environments for the two brands tested was that while the key message/tagline for the mainstream haircare brand was delivered across both premium and UGC environments, the more premium wine brand only had significant key message take out in the premium context.

Says Allan Breiland, media and digital senior media consultant, Kantar: “A benefit provided by premium environments is delivering video ads in full duration to their viewers – where more playback time enables an emotional as well as a rational message is to be conveyed.”

Behavioural data shows the majority of audiences are not viewing the full ad in social / skippable environments. Kantar’s normative database shows that in skippable environments typically 44 per cent of people view through to the end of a 15-second ad, while in social spaces, this drops to about 18 per cent.

Says Breiland: “In-feed or skippable environments must deliver short, sharp messaging for upfront and at-a-glance to maximise the brand building effects. Making the most of the first frame, the first few seconds and keeping the copy simple are crucial. The different playback times observed in the behavioural data shows assets must be tailored to deliver differently in different environments.”

Most importantly this study proves that digital video across all placements delivers very strong brand metrics.

Says Venessa Hunt (pictured above), digital strategy and investment officer, GroupM: “Historically, the digital industry has been guilty of focusing primarily on performance metrics. Most importantly, our new study proves that digital video can be effective in all environments.  With the convergence of all media to digital in some form, it is important to remember the incredible strength that digital can bring to brand building.

“This can be seen even more clearly when brands create fit-for-purpose assets or content designed for the specific platform and user experience. Never has it been so important to understand how and why consumers are interacting with their environments.”

“Another important factor highlighted, like in all mediums, is that the more time a consumer spends with a brand, the better the chance for message retention. In a climate where human attention is a scarce commodity and attention spans are dropping, marketers need to invest budgets where there is the biggest potential for their advertising to be seen, heard and emotionally engaged.”