Online ads grab attention 20% better than TV
May 25, 2011
YuMe, the video advertising technology company, and the IPG Media Lab, have published key findings from a media trial that shows significant differences between the attention paid by viewers to video ads online compared with those on television. Using facial tracking algorithms and biometric monitoring, a second-by-second monitoring of cognition, excitement, and stress found that despite constant distractions in both mediums, online video commands higher attention and recall from viewers.
The attention of TV viewers drops off three times faster; online video content captures 8.5 per cent more attention than TV content; and online video ads have 18+ per cent more fully attentive viewers than TV ads. Overall, the study found online video ads to have 20 per cent more attentive advertising impressions.
Key findings included the following:
– Viewer distractions, most commonly in the form of smartphones – which are “a persistent companion to video content” -reduce attention to ads for both TV and online video
– Versus online video, TV has 3x the drop in attention from content to ad
– 63 per cent of TV impressions were ignored
– Online video content gets 8.5 per cent more attention than TV and online video ads have 18.3 per cent more fully attentive viewers than TV ads
– Online ads have 1.8x the aided recall and 1.5x the unaided recall of TV ads
– TV viewers are exposed to nearly twice as many video ads as online viewers
Based on the trial, researchers concluded that online video ads have 20 per cent more attentive impressions than TV ads. Although fast-forwarded video ads, such as those recorded on a DVR, achieve little recall, ad fast forwarding accounts for only a small amount of wasted ad impressions. A larger factor in the relative ineffectiveness of TV advertising is the familiar cadence of TV content, which increases drop-off to ads compared with online video.