Users Watching Web Video, But Can't Recall Ads, Study

Bad news for advertisers and U.S. employers.First, the bad news for bosses of the world. Based on viewership patterns identified in a new wide-ranging report set to be jointly issued on Thursday (Aug. 6) by Yahoo, the researcher Interpret, Warner Bros. Media Lab and the agencies Havas Digital and PHD, Americans are more inclined to skip work to watch Web video versus skipping dinner. Across demographic groups, the study found that online video consumption spiked from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. each day—prime working hours for many—and again from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., after dinner for most. Roughly 70 percent of viewers watch online video both during the day and at night.Next, the bad news for advertisers. According to the study, 81 percent of the 2,000-plus Web users who responded to Interpret’s online survey could not recall seeing an ad at all in the last video they watched. However, there is promising news for brands. The study found a strong correlation between highly engaging video content and ad recall; among those who did recall ads, 47 percent were viewing what the study found to be “highly engaging” videos. Plus, videos that were judged to be highly engaging had an excellent chance to be shared with others (64 percent). And consumers who watch highly engaging videos are three times as likely to mention the brands featured in adjacent ads to friends. In fact, according to the report, video sharing, or the social aspect of online video, has become so prevalent and influential that it recommends that publishers identify and target which users are their most active sharers—and then sell this target to advertisers at a premium. Overall the research found that more than a third of videos streamed (34 percent) are shared in some way, through e-mail, instant messaging tools or social networking sites. In fact, it’s this level of engagement with video and this willingness among users to share the online video experience, that drove Yahoo, Havas Digital, PHD and the other partners to commission the research, the goal being to build “a universal model of engagement[.]” According to the report, the groups aimed to learn as much as they could about video viewers’ consumption habits and attitudes about Web video advertising so that the overall experience could be improved. Among the study’s conclusions were that it is crucial for marketers to identify their target audience’s video passions; and perhaps surprisingly, there are more opportunities currently to align a brand with those passions in short-form video content versus long form. For publishers, the report urged the use of behavioral data in video to cater to a site’s most active, responsive users. Plus, the report was blunt in its assessment of the current online video ad model. “Fix the advertising experience,” it reads. “Repetition continues to be the biggest source of irritation for viewers…Innovation is needed to energize this space, because the current repetitive approach is not well received by users.”Related: Top-Tier Publishers Get More Intrusive With Ads

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Users Watching Web Video, But Can't Recall Ads, Study

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