Video consumption is continuing to increase amongst consumers, and the video advertising landscape is maturing to accommodate. This presents a natural opportunity for advertisers, as video formats are more impactful and create longer-lasting awareness and recall.
With TikTok’s surge to popularity in recent years (overtaking Google based on site visits), the growth of VOD, and recent announcements by Netflix and Disney+ on their introduction of advertising to their streaming services, the landscape is developing fast.
Those who once thought video formats would fade away as TV consumption diminished amongst younger audiences were way off the mark.
At least 53% of weekly media consumption is on video formats. 95% of all purchase decisions take place due to an emotional connection, and video formats have the greatest impact on igniting an emotional response amongst audiences. Video-driven awareness and recall is longer-term, which ultimately delivers ROI further down the funnel. By contrast, static digital ads do not have the same long term impact.
The ability for video to tell stories, portray brands, convey messages and values, and spark emotion make video an obvious choice of format for many brands. But it is still undervalued and underrepresented. The main reason is, as advertisers, whilst we know it is impactful, it’s not as easy to prove. Impression-level formats and formats that feature heavily in cross-platform customer journeys are difficult to track and attribute success to. Our misguided fixation with trying to directly link input to KPI output in the digital space is proving detrimental to many media plans.
However, with many attribution platforms being highly dependent on cookies, we should all step back and take a higher-level longer-term view about the impact of media (and in particular, video). Looking at simple correlation, or more advanced data modelling, should be the path we take.
