Enhance Your Brand with Video Ads

The world of digital marketing continues to evolve and the internet has become just as important as print and television to advertisers. According to Nielsen, in 2011 over 274 million Americans have internet access, doubling the number of Americans with access in 2000. That number will keep growing as record sales of tablets and smartphones are on tap for 2012.

Once the star of online advertising, banner ads are losing their allure to more entertaining and engaging video ads.  Early on, static banners gave advertisers the chance to reach new customers and provided the ability to easily track web visits back to the ad source.  Banner ads were the staple and trusted choice for online advertising.   Things have changed.

Banner ads are no longer as effective as they once were. The challenge with traditional banner ads is web users have become good at ignoring them.  According to research by DoubleClick, video ads offer an average click-through-rate of 4 to 7 times higher than traditional banner ads.  This increase isn’t going unnoticed.  A recent Break Media Study revealed two-thirds of advertisers plan to advertise with video banners in 2012. To allow for video ads in their budgets, advertisers are shifting much of their advertising budget from standard display ads to video ads.

The reasons why advertisers are turning to video ads are clearly outlined in the objectives indicated below:

Quality Creative Matters

Video tells your brand’s story in a way that a static banner ad can’t.  An entertaining video advertisement is more likely to be shared.  An advertisement shared by a friend offers a stronger brand endorsement than an advertisement that appears on TV or randomly pops up on a website.

By the end of 2011, the Visible Measures 2011 Social Advertising report stated consumers had chosen to watch ads over 5.6 billion times.  Views were user-initiated. Consumers had to press play to actually view the ad. Another bonus of online video ads is they never die. The ads can still be viewed and shared even years after their initial launch giving brands extended exposure without additional investment.

Another factor of little surprise is the better the creative the stronger an ad performs.  Nielsen reports that 26 percent of mobile connected device owners are more likely to look at ads if they have an interesting video and 20 percent of respondents reported enjoying ads that have interactive features.  Video ads also provide better balanced branding results with viewers reporting higher purchase intent, brand favorability and online brand awareness.

Video ads kept site visitors engaged more than five seconds longer than rich media according to a global study by MegaMind.  One particular video ad format, video extender ads had a 103% dwell rate over a traditional static banner.

Whether you want to enhance brand awareness or boost customer engagement now is the time to incorporate video ads into your online advertising mix.

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