Web Ads Work Better Than TV Ads

Fohootville, We Hate You writes "According to a new study, Internet advertisements work better than television advertisements. Internet video watchers were reported to be 47 percent more "engaged" by the advertising they watched than were traditional TV viewers. The report does not mention whether pornographic internet advertisements were included in the study."

Comments

Riddle me this:

[locokamil]

Has anyone here ever intentionally clicked on a banner ad? A text ad? Any ad?

Re:Riddle me this:

[Rude Turnip]

Yes, several times when they offered exactly what I was looking for at exactly the right time. I clicked on a Google text ad this morning looking for custom rubber stamps. The fact that the merchant uses Google's checkout system, designated by the Google Checkout icon...*another ad*....sealed the deal for me.

Re:Riddle me this:

[Firethorn]

From what I've read, google is the master of targeted ads. I frequently click on the ads when they come up during google searches - they're usually pretty good. They easily have the best rate going.

As a result, they have far better results than less targeted but more disruptive ads - as a result of TV, people already have a massive resistance to ads they're not really interested in. Add that to the fact that most television ads today are mostly brand awareness - can we really answer how much difference Coke/Pepsi ads make today?

New products make more sense to advertise - awareness hasn't built up yet. Still, I've been deluged with so many ads that I've stopped watching television most of the time, and I've certainly built up resistance to advertising.

Every so often the media companies go too far with advertising - resulting early on in people taping TV shows in order to be able to fast forward through them. Then they came up with auto-forwarding players, and players that would automatically pause recording during commercials.

Then DVRs came and the same features popped up.

On the internet, advertising just kept getting more and more intrusive until a backlash occurred - Firefox, pop-up blockers, various ad-removal services, etc...

Meanwhile google tools along generating ad revenue by concentrating on providing useful, directed, but not intrusive ads.

Re:Riddle me this:

[jellomizer]

Advertising is not Evil. Most of the time there are people with actual goods and services that could be a value to someone. I am fine with Adds just as long as they are under control. A flash banner add is not a big deal.
It is not like the 90's and early 2000's where the adds seriously effected speed of the content, waiting for doubleclick to respond was painful even on high speeds. But lately I rarely ever notice performance issues with adds.
Now adds are not the problem but the Greed of the Web Master. If they want to make a living with a somewhat popular web site they can do so with a tastefully targeted add placed per page much like slashdot, or osnews. But if they are greedy and want to try to make a lot of money they will try to put more and more adds to get the most money from the site.

The Webmaster can fight with the Add agency to keep things at the right level. I found some very open about their dealing with adds, making sure sound adds are not played, and no popups etc... And they just explain to the add company if you don't do this we will switch to an another add company because our users won't stand for this.

Re:Riddle me this:

[jridley]

Hey, at least it's not the same as every other damn car out there. You can hardly tell most cars apart anymore.

Not banner ads, you idiots

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The ads they are talking about are ads run inline in the video, not the crap surrounding the video frame.

That's because

[koan]

That's because TV isn't interactive, I remember a study done once that measured the brain activity of a TV viewer and it actually declined, the internet *at a minimum* requires that you be involved.
Your brain is in an awake state (well most of us) unlike a TV viewer.

And no, constantly pushing the channel buttons is not interaction.

Re:That's because

[Brickwall]

Oh, pooh. The FCC limits advertising on TV to 16 minutes per hour, or a little more than 25%, certainly not 50%. And some ads are fantastic; the US advertising agencies spend enough money on them.

What bugs me is when the same frickin' ad is played twice in one commercial break or four times during a single show. As amusing it might be the first time, by the time I've seen it four times in an hour, I'm never buying the product, no matter how much I might be able to use it, because I'm so annoyed.

Feeling engaged?

[Futselaar]

maybe I don't quite get marketing, but I would prefer not to measure the success of advertising in terms of 'feeling engaged', but rather in terms of 'units sold'.

Re:Feeling engaged?

[tonsofpcs]

Engaging viewers is great for brand marketing, the goal there being to get the branding (name) known, not necessarily the product or service. A big example of brand marketing is mMode/mLife in the 2002 Super Bowl

Video, yes. Images, no.

[Fastball]

Web ad videos are more "engaging," because video player controls are usually disabled for the ad before the actual content you want to see is delivered. Naturally, with TV, the advertiser doesn't can't disable your remote.

As a consequence, there's almost no video I'll click anymore unless I know for certain it's ad-free. Still, I'm sure most folks just gut it out and let the ad play so they can see the content that follows (maybe open a new browser tab, etc.). So in a way, it's "engaging," but I'd be curious to see what percentage of folks abort and move on without seeing the content.

If I had video content online that I'd want people to see, I'd be leary of prepending a ad video that folks couldn't skip.