Facial Tracking Algorithms and Biometric Monitoring Show Online Video Ads Achieve Significantly Higher Viewer Attention and Recall than TV
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – YuMe, the leading relevant video advertising technology company, and the IPG Media Lab, announced key findings from a media trial that shows significant differences between the attention paid by viewers to video ads online compared with those on television. Using facial tracking algorithms and biometric monitoring, a second-by-second monitoring of cognition, excitement, and stress found that despite constant distractions in both mediums, online video commands higher attention and recall from viewers.
The attention of TV viewers drops off three times faster from content to ad; online video content captures 8.5 percent more attention than TV content; and online video ads have 18+ percent more fully attentive viewers than TV ads. Overall, the study found online video ads to have 20 percent more attentive advertising impressions.
Designed by YuMe and the IPG Media Lab, the study set out to closely analyze consumer behavior in the attempt to answer some key questions.
– Do people pay attention to online video differently than they do when watching TV?
– If people have the option of avoiding advertising, will they?
– If the experiences of watching TV and Online Video are different, should an online ad impression be valued the same way that TV ads are?
– What exactly are the qualitative and quantitative differences between TV watching and online video watching?
Key findings included the following:
– Viewer distractions, most commonly in the form of smartphones—which are “a persistent companion to video content”—reduce attention to ads for both TV and online video
– Versus online video, TV has 3x the drop in attention from content to ad
– 63 percent of TV impressions were ignored
– Online video content gets 8.5 percent more attention than TV and online video ads have 18.3 percent more fully attentive viewers than TV ads
– Online ads have 1.8x the aided recall and 1.5x the unaided recall of TV ads
– TV viewers are exposed to nearly twice as many video ads as online viewers
Based on the trial, researchers concluded that online video ads have 20 percent more attentive impressions than TV ads. Although fast-forwarded video ads, such as those recorded on a DVR, achieve little recall, ad fast forwarding accounts for only a small amount of wasted ad impressions. A larger factor in the relative ineffectiveness of TV advertising is the familiar cadence of TV content, which increases drop-off to ads compared with online video.
This trial was conducted in the Los Angeles Media lab, where people watching video were observed surreptitiously to see how they really watch when they think they are alone and have access to their phones and laptops. Using facial tracking algorithms and biometric monitoring, researchers tracked whether people were paying attention to the screen and monitored for changes in cognition, excitement, and stress on a second-by-second basis. These data streams were matched to a single time-line, aggregated and analyzed to determine the effects of distraction, then compared to ad recall survey results.
To learn more about the research participant’s behaviors with TV and online, go to http://www.yume.com/content/ipg-media-lab and watch “Advertising Attention in the Wild,” a video whitepaper featuring excerpts from the taped research sessions at the IPG Media Lab.
About YuMe
YuMe is the leading, relevant video advertising technology company. It enables top-tier publishers to maximize profits on their professional video content while safely delivering the most effective advertising campaigns for major brands and their agencies. YuMe’s patent-pending Relevance Engine powers both its premium in-stream video ad network, The YuMe Connected Audience Network, and its industry-leading advertising management solutions, ACE for Publishers and ACE for Advertisers. The YuMe Relevance Engine matches the right ad to the right audience on whatever screen they are viewing—PC, mobile, or connected TV. As a result, YuMe gives publishers and advertisers unprecedented reach, brand safety, contextual relevance, controlled syndication, and consistent delivery across all digital media platforms. YuMe is a privately held company headquartered in Redwood City, CA and backed by Accel Partners, BV Capital, DAG Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Intel Capital. For more information, visit www.YuMe.com, follow @YuMevideo on Twitter (www.twitter.com/YuMevideo), or become a fan of YuMe on Facebook at www.facebook.com/YuMevideo.
About IPG Media Lab
At the center of Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands network, the IPG Media Lab helps clients and agencies put innovation into action. By creating opportunities for marketers to identify, formulate and test new approaches, the Lab mitigates risk through a process outside the normal campaign methodology. Employing creative thinking and a suite of proprietary research tools to understand how emerging media impacts purchase decisions, the Lab provides hands-on guidance, digital media insight and measurable results to clients. Our product framework is built around three fundamental pillars: Diagnosing Opportunity, Prioritization and Deployment. www.ipglab.com
