Native video ads boost brand awareness by 26% as part of marketing mix: Study

Adding native video ads to the marketing mix can boost the overall impact of multi-channel online advertising campaigns, finds a new study. The study done by data analytics and brand consulting firm Kantar and commissioned by US-based advertising firm Taboola, has confirmed that brand awareness improved by 26% when adding native video ads in the open web to a marketing mix.

While video marketing has proved to be an impressive brand promotion strategy in recent years, one area that brands tend to overlooked until recently was native video advertising, where video content is uploaded directly to (or created on) a social network and played in-feed on that platform. For example, on Facebook, a native video would be a video that is uploaded directly to Facebook, rather than a link shared from YouTube or Vimeo.

Native video ads in the open web have a stronger impact on brand favourability and consideration than social or video platforms, said the study. According to the study, 59% of respondents that received a native video ad exposure expressed brand favourability, compared to 50% for social platform exposures and 51% for video platform exposures.

When study participants were shown native video ads, 33% displayed top-of-mind awareness – compared to just 14% of the control group. When native video ads were combined with social platform video ads, top-of-mind awareness rose to 49%.

As an example, the report said that Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) Thailand wanted to promote movie trailers and increase ticket sales for three upcoming movies: Spider-Man, Venom, and Goosebumps. The company started with a single-channel strategy that used social media videos.

The study found that not only did brand awareness improved substantially when native video ads were added to the marketing mix, but the exposure to native video ads also improved brand image. Native video drove even higher engagement when combined with other video marketing channels, like social and streaming platforms, it said.
The beauty of native video is that it doesn’t interrupt the user experience with unnecessary extra clicks or new windows, meaning the content is something viewers are more likely to engage with rather than an annoying distraction in their news feed, the report added.

 “Video ads continue to prove valuable to brands, especially as TV dollars are moving to digital,” said Adam Singolda, CEO and founder, Taboola. He believes in the age of video advertising, “brands have a lot of opportunities to influence customers, as long as they’re choosing the right platforms and mix of platforms to relay their messages”.

eMarketer forecasts also show digital ad spending in the US will reach $270 billion in the US by 2023 and video plays a significant factor–more than half of marketers cite video as their most valuable ad format overall.