Go to your favorite social media app or platform and scroll quickly. If it’s Instagram, you’ll probably see stories from your friends, perhaps fifty percent video, or more? If LinkedIn – which posts are capturing your attention? Images, text or video? Maybe you’re also a frequent user of YouTube or TikTok: platforms solely relying on video content? You don’t need to be Einstein to understand that video has become the most popular choice for consuming content, regardless if it’s binge-watching, TikTok or digital ads. Studies suggest that by the end of 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic. That’s an increase of 1500% since 2017. Woah, take that in.
As always, brands and publishers need to adapt to changes in consumer behavior. We’ve seen it already: video advertising has shown significant growth over the past few years, just look at Facebook, they have over 5 million active video advertisers every month.
For those of you that need additional arguments as to why you should invest more of your ad budget toward video advertising – this article is for you. Keep reading, as we’ll also share some simple tips for mastering it.
Why video advertising?
“If your ad goes about unnoticed, everything else is academic” - William Bernbach.
Let’s go back to the basics of advertising for a second: advertising is all about standing out, and more specifically – catching and keeping attention. And it goes without saying: videos stand out more than simple, static images. If we just look at aggregated data from our own platform and past creatives, we can see that video creatives on average get 3.41x higher time-in-view than image creatives.
Get noticed, get attention, get remembered
Data from Lumen Research also shows that ad recall is significantly higher for ads that are viewed for more than one second – a threshold that video ads usually tend to pass. We see similar statistics from Professor Karen Nelson-Field, who found that there’s a correlation between attention and ad decay: the more attention an ad gets, the longer the brand stays in memory. It takes more than two seconds of attention to have any lasting impact on memory, according to research from Professor Nelson-Field. Every second over three adds three more days to how long a brand lasts in a person’s memory.
The golden window for ad recall: The longer time a user looks at an ad, the higher brand recall and brand preference he/she will have (Lumen Research).
Video advertising is an effective instrument to reach and adhere to different advertiser KPIs: Brand awareness, ad recall, driving traffic, or even conversions. In a study regarding attention and ad effectiveness, conducted by Google, they found that participants exposed to ads that they both saw and heard (video), reported a 2.7x higher ad recall compared to ads they only heard or saw. Similar studies have shown even higher results in favor of video advertising: Forbes states that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video as compared to only 10% when reading it.
High impact video as a catalyst for attention
Combining video with high impact advertising is a catalyst for creativity and attention, and represents a big opportunity for brands in 2022. High impact formats are not only proven to result in higher view-time, but they also outperform most formats when it comes to attentive seconds, as seen in new research from Lumen. Its size and customisable nature also give a lot of room for creativity, which we all know is the most important factor of ad success.
But what about the price, you might think? Combining video and high impact sounds pricey?
Sure, this is a valid thought. However, as the industry is shifting more from buying impressions (CPM) to buying seconds of attention (aCPM), it’s clear that popular formats such as Instagram, Facebook and Standard Display are actually more expensive when looking at the attention they get. Online Video and High Impact, on the other hand, are the cheapest. 👇
Data from Dentsu Denmark. (Green is CPM and pink is price per ‘000 attentive seconds -> aCPM).
Video advertising with Adnami
If you after this article feel more eager to do more video – Adnami offers a lot of flexibility: HD quality and streaming (with the help of our partner SeenThis), a range of impactful video formats and creative templates, as well as tracking and reporting of video metrics.
All of our formats are available programmatically through your preferred DSP in order to support programmatic campaign goals (including direct response, awareness and prospecting). In addition, Adnami also supports video tracking and reporting such as viewability, views, quartiles, completes and VTR. And, with the help of our partner Lumen Research, we’re now also able to predict attention before you run a campaign, so you can measure, plan and optimise on live campaigns (reach out here to learn more).
If you want to include audio in your video campaign, you can easily activate it on all formats, and our video formats are designed to start playing when in view, ensuring that users watch the video from start to finish.
With the help of our partner Lumen Research, we are now able to predict attention before you run a campaign, so you can measure, plan and optimise on live campaigns.
How to get started with video advertising
The creative, followed by the format, are two of the most important factors for ad success. Let’s delve a bit deeper…
High impact video formats
High impact come in many shapes and forms. If you’ve followed us for a while, you might already be familiar with our Topscrolls and Midscrolls. These high impact formats are available for both mobile and desktop, and super simple and effective to use for video campaigns. See this case study with Lexus for example.
The formats are effective, as they typically cover the full screen of your device, while blending in naturally to the feed while you scroll. We also offer video for many of our other high impact formats such as skins, expanders, and so on.
A great example: Bvlgari (desktop) and ShareNow (mobile).
Social display video
At Adnami, we’ve developed social display formats so you can easily repurpose your old video creatives, e.g. from a social media campaign, in a completely new context. These social display ads resemble the posts you usually see on Facebook or Instagram: The highly engaging formats have a familiar feel and fit well for brands that have leaned towards a social-first advertising policy, and – the format has also been proven to combat ‘banner blindness’. We've seen that CTRs are around 0,3-0,4 which is 4-5x higher than the standard format.
As Facebook is increasing their prices, this is also a good option if you want to find an cost-effective way to still run social ads.
Example: Adore.
Video templates
Our ready-made creative templates don't require extra creative production or new assets. Just upload your current videos and adjust the other elements to fit your brand style and campaign goals–and you’re done! Learn more here.
Examples: C More (mobile), Volkswagen (Midscroll Anchor), Discovery+ (desktop)
Creative tips for video advertising
- Keep it short: High impact video should not be more than 10 seconds long.
- Less is more: Advertising should be kept simple with clarity in mind. Try to avoid having more than 4 visual clusters.
- Clear branding and CTAs: Do not save the brand to the end frame. Keep it visible. And make sure to be explicit about what you want the user to do (CTA).
- Consider viewing pattern: Design the video ads so they align with the viewing pattern of the context, e.g. mobile feed or desktop in article.
Want to learn more about how to get that extra attention with video advertising? Just reach out here and we’ll see how we can help you with your business needs.
