Online Ads Surpass TV Ads In Recall and Likability

by Wayne Friedman, Mediapost.com, Thursday, April 22, 2010, 11:32 AM

New online advertising research has again shown what other studies have suggested: Online commercials get better recall than television messaging.

In every recall measure -- general recall, brand recall, message recall, likability -- online proves superior.

Online video ads have a 65% general recall, compared to 46% general recall for TV ads. Brand recall online is at 50% to TV's 28%; message online recall comes in at 39% to TV's 21%; and online likability is 26% to TV's 14%.
The study of 14,000 surveys was originally presented by Dave Kaplan, senior vice president of product leadership at Nielsen IAG, and Beth Uyenco, director of global research at Microsoft, at the Advertising Research Foundation. They evaluated 238 brands, 412 products and 951 ad executions to get these results. A deeper brand impact was felt higher among young viewers 13-34.

What accounted for the positive results?

Internet video viewers are more engaged and attentive. The research also said curiosity is a factor, as online video is still relatively new compared to existing media.

One of the biggest reasons for the attentiveness: The inability of the user to skip ads versus that of traditional TV, where about one- third of U.S viewers have the ability to fast-forward through messaging.
There is also reduced advertising clutter -- about four minutes for an hour of programming. This is against 10 minutes of national ads for traditional TV, and around 15 minutes overall when including local ads and TV promos.

There are growing trends to increase commercial load, however. The research says online advertising's "sweet spot" is between six and seven minutes per hour.