Dive Brief:
- Yahoo teamed up with Nielsen & Hunter Qualitative to find out what really makes video ads effective and the result was a Video Creative Best Practices report for the increasingly popular ad format.
- The key finding was screen alignment does indeed have an impact on an ads success, and the way a video is viewed impacts increases in brand affinity. Viewing a landscape ad horizontally increases affinity 20%, while viewing a portrait ad vertically increases affinity 80%.
- Apart from screen alignment, funny ads increase brand familiarity with millennials 50%, and auto-start native video ad formats are more successful than user-started video ads.
Dive Insight:
Video is seeing a surge in popularity both from consumers and marketers alike. As more platforms rush to improve their video capabilities, specifically on mobile, marketers also have to find ways to adapt or create video content that suits the variety of available platforms. Yahoo's Best Practices offers a good place for marketers to start, and even discloses some useful tips, such as that to connect with millennials, emotionally-packed videos work.
Another interesting finding from the research was that consumers are more interested in digital video than traditional TV. Thirty-six percent of respondents reported increasing weekly viewing time spent on mobile video, while just 7% reported increasing time spent on desktop video.
Some additional best practices for video ads recommended by the report call for marketers to use larger logos in mobile ads, calls-to-action (even if they are just URLs or hashtags) and traditional 15- and 30-second lengths for pre-roll ads. What's more, the report suggests that when a brand is mentioned in video ads, it has no impact on result KPIs, but that 15-second native video ads drive greater recall and purchase intent.