Americans spent more than 360 billion minutes online in December 2012 and streamed a whopping 24.6 billion videos, according to Nielsen. That massive block of time represents a significant opportunity for advertisers, but making meaningful connections with consumers online can be challenging as consumer choice, and media, expands across and within devices. As advertisers explore new opportunities online, recent research highlights the power of native video advertising, a budding content-based, user-initiated ad format with no length limit.

According to a new case study from Nielsen, native video advertising proved a successful option in driving brand lift for five leading advertisers—including Jarritos, a naturally flavored soft drink brand.

Sharethrough, an online video advertising distribution company, tapped Nielsen Online Brand Effect to compare the effectiveness of its native video ads in affecting brand lift metrics like awareness, purchase intent and favorability with that of the popular pre-roll video ad unit, which plays automatically before video content. For the study, Sharethrough served the same creative message in both pre-roll and native advertising formats for all five advertisers’ campaigns, though the pre-roll ads were restricted to 15 or 30 seconds in length.

In the case study, native video advertising outperformed pre-roll ads for all five advertisers, regardless of the campaign’s category or marketing objective. For instance, the findings from the Jarritos campaign, whose primary marketing objective was to drive brand favorability, showed that:

• Native ads generated 82% brand lift among users exposed to the ads.
• Pre-roll units generated 2.1% brand lift among users exposed to the ads.

In an increasingly fragmented and crowded media landscape, understanding which creatives, publishers and ad formats resonate most with your audience can mean the difference between elevating your brand lift and wasting crucial ad dollars. Whenever possible, test the brand impact of each element to determine which one most effectively gets your message across.

For the full case study, including additional findings for Jarritos as well as a leading consumer packaged goods advertiser, click here.

Methodology

Nielsen Online Brand Effect, formerly Vizu Ad Catalyst, allows advertisers to collaborate with their digital media ecosystem around optimizing brand lift metrics in real-time. Consumer sentiment is captured through a web-poll that asks each consumer sampled a question to measure how the campaign performed against its primary objective. An intuitive, web-based dashboard shows the performance of the add in reach the primary objective as well as other key campaign elements driving overall brand lift – creative, frequency, and audience segments.