MediaRadar Online Video Advertising Index, October 2014

As online video consumption continues to skyrocket, online video advertising continues to be a rapidly growing online ad format, according to MediaRadar’s latest Online Video Advertising Index.

Brand marketers are embracing the rise in online video advertising – 2,707 different brands placed online video ads across a survey of 125 top consumer websites (excluding YouTube) between January – August 2014. Sports and news websites led the pack in attracting online video advertisers, according to the MediaRadar Online Video Advertising Index. Sports sites featured 855 different brands’ online video advertisements, and news sites featured 813 different brands’ online video ads.

Several advertising verticals have been earlier adopters of online video advertising. Media, finance, and beauty brands were the top categories of brands advertising via online video. More than 350 different media brands advertised via online video during January-August 2014, according to MediaRadar.

Fifteen and 30 second video ads are the dominant ads for brands. 79% of the online video ads tracked were 15 (42%) or 30 (37%) seconds in length. Only 3% of the video ads tracked were less than 15 seconds, and 10% were longer than 30 seconds.

When given the option to skip online video ads, consumers overwhelmingly choose to skip; roughly eighty five percent of skippable online video ads are skipped.¹ Of the online video ads MediaRadar analyzed, .2% of 15-second ads included a skip option, and 10.7% of 30-second ads included a skip option. Inevitably, the skipping option will force brands and marketers to rethink their online video advertising creative – length of video, the narrative structure of ads, etc.

Auto-starting of video ads can be controversial, but the industry is overwhelmingly embracing auto-start, according to the MediaRadar Online Video Advertising Index. Ninety-three percent of online videos start automatically when the user lands on a page.

“Considering the high click-through rates of online video ads, we expect marketers to continue investing in this highly effective form of advertising. MediaRadar will continue to monitor the online video advertising market to understand how adoption and utilization evolves over the coming months”, said MediaRadar CEO Todd Krizelman.

¹TubeMogul, Videonuze 2013 Online Video Advertising Summit