The Video Ad Multiplier Effect

The culminate effect of digital video is creating a multiplier effect, which ticks all the boxes for marketers, says Kai Henniges (pictured below), CEO and co-founder, video intelligence, in this piece for ExchangeWire. He describes the 'video ad multiplier effect' that is driving consistent engagement across platforms with video. 

Legendary advertising effectiveness experts Les Binet and Peter Field have famously been proponents of the long-term effectiveness of TV advertising. In Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era (2016), they added online video into this bracket, concluding that online video is also effective for online branding, particularly when combined with TV18. Binet and Field attribute this to the fact that video lends itself to emotional advertising, which has been found to be the most effective long-term creative approach.

But videos effectiveness spreads beyond branding. One of the key findings of WARC’s 2017 analysis of the Cannes Lions Creative Effectiveness category winners was that video, in all formats, is integral to effective campaigns. Linked to the growing number of video options, 82% of shortlisted entries used online video as a lead media.

Video also performs well across all devices, which suits today’s tendency towards multi-screening and when a customer journey often incorporates multiple platforms and devices. Engaging with users when they are consuming content on a particular topic gives online video ads a distinct advantage over other formats such as television. It is also highly shareable, with social platforms making sharing very simple. The option to upload video natively in all the major social channels now eases the experience too. This high potential for sharing makes the reach of video advertising higher than for other ad formats. Traffic and conversions have been proven to increase with the use of video. EyeView has found that including video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%, or more, and Aberdeen Group cited 41% higher web traffic from search to sites using video.

Online video ads also fare better in Nielsen recall metrics than TV ads, particularly for video ads in full episode players. Nielsen found that message recall for video ads is double that of TV, but that effectiveness is increased further when the ads are later duplicated on TV.

So digital video is effective, and good for branding, and search… and recall.

Just in time, new digital inventory is emerging as publishers catch up with the pivot to video. Plugins are now on the market to easily match page content with video demand. Machine learning is rapidly scaling the distribution of video content, bringing instream contextual video to the masses. Meanwhile, television is slow to catch up, as addressable TV ponderously evolves, and CTV vendors either opt for a subscription model, or struggle for scale. As for display, placements are in abundance, but the GDPR threatens its most effective application, retargeting, and it’s looking increasingly tired.

This cacophony of factors forms a digital video multiplier effect. To capitalise on it, advertisers must adapt their creative to new viewing and sharing habits. Moving fast with moving image is the only way to get ahead in 2018.