New research from Break Media, an Internet entertainment community for men, and video ad delivery platform Panache sheds light on the effectiveness of four in-stream video advertising formats established by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in May 2008.
The findings are based on a study of leading brands, like Honda and T-Mobile, that ran run-of-site on Break.com for an 11-week period ending Aug. 2. Each campaign used the four IAB standardized ad units: linear non-interactive (pre-roll); linear interactive (interactive pre-roll); nonlinear non-overlay invitation ad (non-overlay ad); and nonlinear overlay (overlay ad).
The ads ran against short-form professional, semi-professional and user-generated content on Break.com. Panache provided ad delivery and back-end reporting technology to test user interaction and engagement levels with each ad format. Together the companies mined the data to identify trends and glean insight in viewer behavior and engagement using the various formats.
The findings revealed:
- Pre-roll offers a strong call to action. (Click-through rates averaged 10 percent.) Non-Overlays' strength appears to be in building brand awareness. (78 percent viewed the ad for more than 15 seconds, a majority of the time.)
- Pre-roll showed high engagement with high click-through rates when interacting with a targeted audience.
- Completion rates for both 15-second pre-roll and interactive pre-roll averaged 87 percent.
- Pre-roll click-through rate for the 15 second spot was close to 10 percent.
- Interactive pre-roll click-through rate for the 15-second spot ranged between 11 percent higher and 35 percent higher than non-interactive pre-roll, depending on the nature of the call to action.
- The overlay ad yielded high exposure and overall engagement.
- 77 percent viewed campaigns with the overlay ad for at least 15 seconds. and click-through rates were five times industry averages for standard in-page media.
- When using interactive pre-roll ads, having the entire ad clickable appeared to impact call to action.
- Click-through rates were four times as high when the entire ad was clickable vs. only the call to action.
For more information, visit www.breakmedia.break.com and www.panachetech.com.
