Forrester Study Shows Holistic Buying is the Future of Advertising
Videology—one of the world’s largest video advertising platforms—today announced the findings of an independent, commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting in September 2014 on behalf of Videology entitled, “Cross-Platform Video Advertising Accelerates.” The survey results show that video advertising decision makers in Europe see the continuing shift of video viewing across devices as a positive opportunity for the entire ecosystem. However, there are distinct challenges surrounding measurement, leadership between digital and traditional media teams, technology platforms available to meet the changing needs of today’s brands, and media companies as consumer content consumption habits evolve.
The survey included 500 advertisers, agencies and media companies across the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. It was designed to explore the hypothesis that the evolving combination of data, technology and cross-device viewing would lead to holistic, platform-agnostic planning of linear television and digital video advertising. The study revealed that 70 per cent of respondents believe that it’s ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to be able to buy audiences in a holistic way, across all screens including TV and video platforms over the next three years. However, a change of this magnitude will require innovative leadership and that leader is still unclear.
“These are challenging times, with clear knowledge gaps in how to operate in a future that all parties agree is coming quickly. With an audience that is racing ahead to adopt new viewing behaviors, it is time for media, advertisers and agencies to embrace new approaches to video. Since there is consensus that media companies and advertisers will both benefit, all participants should focus on their areas of agreement and collaborate to resolve issues that are in question,” Forrester Consulting study, September 2014.
Key findings include:
Audience targeting is the greatest advantage of video advertising
The ability to target specific consumers was the highest benefit to video advertising in Europe, followed by higher audience attention. However, there are differences across each country. France ranked ‘Enhancing video with interactive features’ equal to targeting. While, Spain saw the ability to reach consumers not reached on TV, delivering messages at different times of the day, and controlling reach and frequency as the key benefits. The UK placed more emphasis on ROI accountability over all other countries – signaling the maturity of the video advertising market in the region.
Agencies believe holistic buying and planning is the future, but broad adoption is yet to come
63% of agencies expect to merge traditional and online video buying groups in the future, but 51% said they would continue to plan each platform separately.
Media companies see the potential for second-screen viewing experiences
72% of media company respondents believe consumer engagement with content on a second screen will increase moderately or significantly over the next three years.
Advertisers and their agencies back Gross Rate Points (GRPs) as the measurement standard for video
While all stakeholders agree that video advertising measurement is a challenge, they are still divided on the most effective standards. Advertisers and their agencies agree that GRPs are a useful tool, with 75% believing the industry should standardise on one GRP metric to increase efficiency.
Technology must adapt to the operational needs of marketers and media companies.
Over a third (42%) of respondents said that they need a technology platform that allows them to target consumers in multiple ways. The top three features they look for in a technology platform include: target audiences in multiple ways, tracking consumers across multiple devices and serving ads to smartphones. Interestingly, the ability to serve ads on VOD platforms via cable/satellite TV was amongst the least important.
“As technology providers, we’re in a unique position to be able to alleviate these challenges for the advertising community and be an accelerator for broad adoption,” said Anne De Kerckhove, managing director, EMEA at Videology. “We ushered in the programmatic model in response to a greater need for efficiency in the way advertising is bought and sold. The industry is now crying out for standardization across video advertising measurement and audience targeting across devices. If technology providers listen to what the industry needs, we can deliver solutions that will catapult the industry forward and increase revenues across the board.”
Anne de Kerckhove and Richard Joyce, Senior Analyst of Forrester Consulting will discuss this study at DMEXCO 2014 in Cologne, Germany on 10th September. You can download the full study here.
