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How do media planners/buyers view video ads on the Internet

Exponential Interactive, Inc., today released research about buyer perceptions
of online video advertising.

Exponential employed a research study of 100 premier advertising agency media planners and buyers to better understand the barriers to buying and delivering video ads on the Internet.

A key observation was the need for standardization and education to meet the demands of the marketplace.

Some highlights of the research:

• Pre-roll still remains the dominant, most commonly used format.
• Buyers do not perceive it as too intrusive, as some have reported.
• High prices for top tier video placements, often cited as a barrier, are a distant concern behind content quality, targeting capabilities, branding opportunities and reporting.

Despite the buzz about the lack of standardization in online video metrics, those who have bought online video on average use three types of measurement

• unique viewers who viewed ads
• clicks/cost per click &
• length of time spent viewing ads. 

And, they report satisfaction with these metrics.

YouTube's new ad model being finalised?

And, it's not the pre-rolls /post-rolls (in conventional old economy 'TV' format), the Google guys are excited about.

After almost a year after acquiring YouTube, the Google team seems to feel that they have indeed cracked a model that works better - non-intrusive and very effective. Reports suggest that it's a simple flash-based ad overlay that appears across the lower 20% of the screen shortly after a YouTube video launches. It stays for about 10 seconds and, if a viewer doesn't choose to click on it and enable a longer-form video ad, it goes away.

Even though tests have been running on YouTube for more than a month, Google is just now talking about the ad format that it's rolling out in videos on the site. It has already tested the ads with movie advertisers such as New Line Cinema and Weinstein Co., along with automaker BMW.

It seems smaller overlay proves to be less intrusive. The new format lets viewers decide whether they want to see the longer-form ad, rather than forcing it upon them.

According to Google executives, early test results indicate less than 10% of users close the overlays. They also said click-through rates are five to 10 times a typical standard display ad (meaning the ads on YouTube are getting a click-through rate of 2.5% to 5%). Three-quarters of those who clicked on an
overlay watched the ad.