Part
I: Bare Bones Technology
Part II: Creative Possibilities
Part III: Is Anybody Out There?
Part IV: Jazzing up the Banner
 Branding Beyond Intuition:
Streaming Media 101, Part V
by Pamela
Parker
Managing Editor of ChannelSeven.com and Internet
Advertising Report
8/22/01
Intuitively, you'd think that streaming audio, and
especially video -- with its walking, talking representations of
real life -- would have more of an emotional (read: branding) impact
than a banner ad. But, if you're a hard-nosed marketer (or your
boss is), you're unlikely to accept intuition as gospel. You're
looking for some cold hard facts with which to evaluate whether
online audio or video belong in your next campaign. And that's just
what we'll provide in this fifth installment of Streaming Media
101 on TurboAds.com.
"We've been seeing that advertising online can have branding
impact, and we're now seeing that the same is true for audio ads,"
said Doug Knopper, vice president and general manager for
Diameter, DoubleClick's research division.
Source: Millward Brown Interactive in partnership
with Real Networks
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Knopper's talking about a streaming audio campaign undertaken by
a national cellular carrier that went under the microscope to provide
the most recent data gathered on the medium. The goals of the study,
undertaken by Diameter in partnership with the carrier, Arbitron,
and Lightningcast, were to examine the impact of audio ads
on brand awareness, ad awareness, element recall, and intent to
use the service. Additionally, the elements of frequency and recency
were taken into account. Streaming audio came out pretty well.
"When you look at awareness and recall and purchase intent, we
saw nice healthy gains across the board," said Knopper.
Specifically, the researchers found that the campaign, on average,
increased brand awareness by 10 percent (as compared to a control
group not exposed to the ads), ad awareness by 64 percent, element
(tagline) recall by 60 percent, and the likelihood to use the
service by 14 percent.
Source: Diameter Research (Division of DoubleClick)
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Another recent Diameter study came up with less promising results
for streaming media, at least when compared to another popular ad
technology -- Macromedia's Flash. The researchers measured
the overall brand-building effort of three different brands, and
found that audio delivered an average lift of 14 percent, and video
produced a lift of nine percent. Animated .gif banners average a
four percent lift, so these results don't sound too bad. But Flash
weighed in with a dramatic average lift of 71 percent. Another interesting
thing to note there: audio performed better than video, which is
somewhat counter-intuitive.
Of course, these days Flash -- with its ability to enable smaller
file sizes -- simply may look better, compared to the herky-jerky
video images experienced by many on slower Internet connections.
That may change as time goes on, but it's something on which ongoing
research will be needed.
The granddaddy of streaming media branding research hails from
Millward Brown Interactive in partnership with Real
Networks. In studies undertaken by the pair, researchers found
that streaming ads (a distinction between audio and video was
not made) increased branded ad awareness by 23 percent, while
the "big impression" format produced an eight percent lift. A
banner ad, by comparison, raised awareness by four percent.
"A streaming ad continues to hold your attention, and it has
the major advantage that it's using both sound and video to produce
the impact," said Nigel Hollis, strategic planning and
development director at Millward Brown. "From our research we
see that not only does it get a higher degree of awareness, but
it's generating a more positive response in terms of people's
reaction to the creative."
Source: Millward Brown Interactive in partnership
with Real Networks
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In this study, aided brand awareness jumped with the use of streaming
media. Streaming ads produced a 13 percent lift in aided brand awareness,
as compared to six percent for a big impression, and three percent
for a banner ad.
When it came to measuring the ads' ability to influence people's
perception of the brand, though, the results were somewhat disappointing.
When viewers who saw a banner ad were asked if it improved their
image of the brand, 41 percent of them responded in the affirmative.
With the streaming ad, around 45 percent said yes. That's not
a dramatically large difference, especially when you consider
the possible added creative costs and serving costs associated
with streaming media.
More than 54 percent who saw the streaming ad (as compared to
49 percent with the banner) said it made the brand more appealing.
More than 51 percent (46 percent with the banner) said it made
them more interested in the brand. Banner ads and streaming ads
tied when it came to telling people something new about the brand
(47 percent) or reminding them of good things about the brand
(46 percent). Streaming came out ahead on the negative measures,
too, with slightly more people that saw the streaming ad saying
the ad turned them off to the brand (18 percent with streaming,
16 percent with the banner) or reminded them of negative things
about the ad (13 percent with streaming, 11 percent with the banner).
Source: Millward Brown Interactive in partnership
with Real Networks
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In another key area -- that of click-through -- streaming media
performed really well, garnering a 3.5 percent click-through rate,
on average (according to Real Networks' log files) as compared to
banners, which are generally thought to have an average 0.5 percent
click-through rate.
It should be considered that the relative scarcity of streaming
media advertisements nowadays -- and especially back when the
original research was done on streaming -- will skew the results
of any of these studies. People are more likely to notice and
recall streaming ads, because they're the only such ads they're
exposed to. A recent Arbitron study found that only 26 percent
of people who watch streaming video programming have ever seen
an ad, and only 34 percent of audio listeners had ever heard an
ad. How will the results be different when or if there are multiple
"pods" of ads as there are in terrestrial radio?
Obviously, there's a lot more work to be done in the arena. Only
recently have companies begun doing studies that take a good hard
look at the effectiveness of streaming media and try to determine
the best use of the platform. Expect more such research to come
out in the coming year, as the audience for streaming grows larger
and more brand-oriented advertisers begin to experiment.
More branding studies from CyberAtlas:
Falling Behind On Your 101?
Part I: Bare Bones Technology
Part II: Creative Possibilities
Part III: Is Anybody Out There?
Part IV: Jazzing up the Banner
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