According to recent findings released by marketing research firm Millard Brown, advertisements made for television carry over very well, if not better in some respects, online.
Millard Brown’s CTV-1 Study involved more than 3,000 participants who were required to view a prime-time TV show in one sitting, either on live TV, time-shifted format, or online. They were also shown new 30-second ad spots. A survey was given to each participant within 48 hours of the viewing.
Consumers who viewed these TV commercials while watching online videos responded very positively. Viewer attention rate increased by 53%, while awareness increased by 52%, consideration increased 27%, and favorability increased by 26%.
In addition to all of this, ad recall for online viewers was four times higher than the recall for live or time-shifted viewers.
The key to this could be the fact that while watching these commercial spots online, viewers only have to sit through 30 seconds of advertising, while during live or time-shifted showings viewers are forced to sit through four minutes of advertising.
Retention rates during breaks in programming are also better for online video viewers versus their traditional TV-watching counterparts. For the former the retention rate is 68%, while for the latter the retention rate drops to 59%.
The moral of the story is not that TV ads should be seen as inferior to online ads, but that there should be a healthy balance of the two approaches. Online viewers are different in attitude and response than live television viewers, and each group should be treated as such. It’s also important to note that as of now, live TV viewers heavily outweigh online viewers.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004735
http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/MillwardBrown/
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