ComScore: Online Ads Boost Brands Just as Effectively as TV Campaigns

Television advertising may be some of the most expensive marketing a brand can engage in, but consumer goods brands could do just as well pouring their ad dollars into the Web. A comScore study has found that online advertising is at least as effective as television advertising when it comes to selling consumer package goods. In fact, it's slightly better.

ComScore compared the online behavior of its panelists with their purchases at the checkout lines of supermarkets. Compared with a control set that wasn't exposed to the online campaigns, the 200,000-consumer study found that online ads for consumer package goods lifted retail sales by 9% on average, while television campaigns only boosted retail by 8%.

In a press release, comScore's executive chairman chalked online marketing's success at elevating consumer goods to its increased targeting ability, particularly in hitting the right demographic segment. That seems reasonable enough; the study showed that 80% of the online campaigns catalyzed significant statistical boosts in their brands' sales figures, so the right ads must have been finding the right consumers most of the time.

But the significant questions is this: Why are media buyers paying so much for television ad space? More importantly, why are the gatekeepers of online media selling a superior advertising tool for peanuts? Television advertising still has the ability to reach out and touch vast audiences in a short period of time, but with the advent of DVR and the rise of Internet TV, the tube isn't the advertising behemoth it used to be. The Web, on the other hand, is gaining an increased share of consumers' time every day.

Meanwhile, television upfronts--negotiations in which networks try to sell the majority of their ad space for the year--were dismal for 2009; the five largest networks reported a 22% decline in year-over-year revenue. Part of that can be attributed to the economic downturn, but nothing makes businesses take note of where they are wasting money quite like a stalling economy. These numbers are clearly heartening for those that have been saying all along that Web advertising, with its niche targeting, the piles of data it generates, and its potential for interactivity, is undervalued. For television, the research certainly doesn't spell the beginning of the end, but it does dish a harsh dose of reality: At least in some segments, television is losing ground, and the chances of regaining it are slim.

Courtesy of: Clay Dillow Wed Aug 19, 2009 at 12:50 PM

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/clay-dillow/culture-buffet/online-ads-boost-brands-just-effectively-tv-campaigns

Some Warm, Cuddly Facts On Video Distribution

Recently, we’ve received some great feedback on one of our newest product offerings- Mass Video Distribution. To summarize, this is the process of taking a video (one created professionally instudio, one you have had previously made, or even just one on your own flip-camera from your home office), uploading it to the web complete with appropriate description and meta-tags, and blasting it out on the web. Our promise is that your video will now appear of 16-25 (depending on the content) of the most prominent and popular social media and video sharing sites (including but not limited to Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Revver, Yahoo Video, Veoh, Viddler, Dailymotion, etc). This concept is pretty exciting in itself… after all, just increasing the likelihood of being seen online by 25 times in one kung-fu like keyboard stroke is pretty freakin cool. There are loads and loads of facts, statistics, and pie charts created to prove the efficacy of this method of online marketing- but recently, I did my own little case study, and the results were much more exciting than some website text that said it would work.

It’s been a few years since I’ve taken statistics or research methodology, but I think I can summarize the stunning results I’ve received just this past month without plotting a T Chart or creating fancy color-coded graphs. Recently, a prospect asked for us to distribute a video for them, to test the waters and see how effective it was. We’ve seen great reporting on this process already- in fact, we’ve taken one client from 2 listings on Google (their linked in profile and corporate company page) to literally filling up the first 3 Google organic result pages with thumbnails of the video we created for her… not by her name or the title of the video, but even just with the phrase she wished to use to brand herself. Awesome.

This particular project, however, I followed more closely then any of the others that we have distributed thus far, and found that our promise to have a client appear on 16-25 sharing sites was greatly undervaluing what this service actually did. I will refer to the project here as ProjectA. Upon receipt of the file (we used a file the client had already created, and had distributed on several sites already), we imported the description and meta-tags of the clients choosing, and exported the file to our normal sites. I had already gone in and created personalized accounts on all of the sharing sites for the client, so we could easily track the views. After a week, the reporting tool created by the company we use to mass distribute showed mediocre results… certainly more views than would have been seen otherwise, but not what I was looking for. From there, I began to search google on my own, using the title of the video. The results were over 300 views more than our reporting stated. As a test, I redistributed the video under the ABV umbrella, to see what would happen (several of the sites we use are very “picky”, we tend to get better ranking because so many of our videos have already been approved there). I don’t want to get bogged down with the percentage changes week by week, so I am going to report my most recent findings, and tell you why they are so significant.

Here are the sites that the video can now be found on, and the totals:

Original Distribution:

Ebaums World: (457 views)

Dailymotion: (42 views)

Viddler: (11 views)

Yahoo Video (Y7 Australia, and UK Video Yahoo): (75 views)

5 minutes (39 views)

Youtube: (27 views)

Metacafe: (26 views)

Break: (41 views)

Revver: (9 views)

Howcast: (18 views)

Veoh: (18 views)

Myspace: (13 plays)

SEO Videos: (33 views)

Sevenload: (88 views)

Blip (no reporting)

Widgetbox: (14 views)

AOL Video Canada: (9 views)

DailyMotion Virgilio.IT: (40 views)

Whose Twittin Now: (44 views)

Bukisa: (11 views)

Life123: (43 views)

Biglobe: (14 views)

Woopie.com (9 views)

In.com: (no stats available)

Video Taggy. Japan (no stats)

CastTV (no stats)

Mobilicious (no stats)

Meefedia (no stats)

In.com: (no stats)

RSSNews.com (no stats)

The total views from all sites are 1,081- since July 20, 2009. To date, that is exactly a month. Now, those are pretty great results. But the more interesting thing is that only the first 15 of those sites are actually ones that posted from our original distribution. The next 15 were then picked up from those sites, and embedded onto the other sites listed. Those were just the ones I found while casually researching on my own. Most of them do not have statistics stating how many views they have gotten, which means that the total could be well beyond what I was able to find… and the video may possibly be found on any number of other video sharing sites. So far, it has been uploaded specifically on sites in Japan, the UK, Canada… and any number of other places.

These results fascinated me… even as a person trying to sell this product. It proved to me several things right off the bat: #1 once you release something to the web, it is owned by the web, #2 charts can be deceiving when dealing with the internet (see point #1) and #3 wow, this thing really works. Now, in this specific case (may I state in advance that I do not know the results this video has received on any of the other sites that it was specifically uploaded to by the owner), the video had received 2 more viewings on the Youtube page it was originally posted on before we distributed it. Assuming that was the only sharing site they had uploaded it to, that means that the exposure of the video increased 540:1. This happens to be a company that is very much ahead of the curve as far as social marketing goes, so that may not be the correct ratio… but for an average company looking to get a real bang for their marketing buck- those results are staggering.

I more than pleased to see these results in action. I think everyone should be proud of the products that they offer... and if they are working, well, its not wrong to brag about it a little :-) For more information on our video distribution service, visit our website at http://www.atlantabusinessvideo.com, or call us at 404-343-3540.