Over Half of U.K. Advertisers Say Digital Video Ads Are as Effective as TV Ads

Fifty-two percent of U.K. advertisers believe digital video to be as effective as TV advertisements, according to a new survey by the BrightRoll video network.

BrightRoll says that while many U.K. advertisers are keen to expand their use of digital video ads, they also want better metrics to track online video usage. According to the study, 29 percent of U.K. advertisers surveyed would spend more money on digital video advertising if they were offered stronger success metrics.

Surveyed advertisers said their clients prefer to use views as a measure for success. BrightRoll says that 31 percent of the 100 U.K. advertisers surveyed said their clients use views as their main success metric.

While views were a popular metric for digital video advertisers, gross rating point (GRP) metrics continued to fail to gain support. Only 8 percent of U.K. video advertisers surveyed said their clients prefer to use GRP metrics.

The lack of GRP support goes against a recent advertising survey from North America. A survey from earlier this year found that 65 percent of Canadian video advertisers find GRP to be the most encouraging motivator for video ad spending.

“GRP is a vital metric for online video. If today’s audiences are consuming video across multiple platforms, video advertising should have a form of measurement across those platforms as well. GRP by definition measures the size of an audience reached by a specific platform,” BrightRoll SVP of Marketing and Research Daryl McNutt told ClickZ.

“Since the TV audience and online video audience are not the same, the metric originally created for TV now needs to be adjusted to fairly measure online video’s audience reach. Advertisers can’t have an apples-to-apples comparison of audience reach without GRP for online video. This will enable advertisers to buy and measure all video with one common metric.”

Improved success metrics could make digital video prices easier to swallow. Surveyed participants said that the high price of digital videos is the number one reason for a lack of digital video ad growth. BrightRoll says that industry standard metrics could ease advertisers’ minds when it comes to digital video ad spending.

Another major issue holding back advertisers from spending more on digital video advertising is a lack of targeting techniques. According to the study, 15 percent of participants said a lack of strong targeting techniques was holding back digital video ad spending.

However, BrightRoll says digital video could be using some of the most advanced targeting techniques available. The company says the tools are out there but not being utilized.

BrightRoll uses the example of advertisers using third-party data to target specific audiences as an example of unused targeting techniques. The video network firm says that education is a major deterrent to using these proper targeting opportunities.

“As advertisers grow more confident with the reach of online video, they are shifting focus to other areas, including price, format, targeting, etc.,” continued McNutt.

“Today in the UK, advertisers see targeting capabilities as the most valuable aspect of online video. They want to make sure they’re reaching the right audience, at the right time, with right inventory.”

BrightRoll made headlines earlier this year when it was reported that its digital ads reached over 43 percent of the U.S. population.