The UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) and Nielsen have launched the first industry-backed online video metric, allowing brands to directly compare web viewing with TV for the first time.
It uses a hybrid online audience panel and technology-based methodology to show how web users engage with online video content, helping advertisers, agencies and publishers accurately measure online video audiences.
According to March’s IAB/PWC online ad spend survey, spend on pre-, mid- and post-roll video ads doubled to £54m in 2010 from £28m in 2009.
But advertisers such as FMCGs, which have large TV ad budgets, needed more guidance to increase their online investment, said Smythe.
“There’s lots of investment in video, but if there’s to be a long-term ad-funded model for premium content online, it’s essential that there’s effective, comparable measurement,” he added.
Sonia Carter, head of digital for Cadbury, said robust targeting and measurement tools are essential as more money is spent on online video.
“A significant and growing proportion of our audience now only sees our ads on YouTube, so better video tracking and planning tools are invaluable,” she said. “Video is an exciting area and it’d be interesting to be able to measure ROI more effectively and assess its impact.”
Media agency reaction was also broadly positive, but planners highlighted that such a tool was probably more relevant to FMCGs and those not yet committing to digital, as well as TV buyers, as opposed to direct-response advertisers.
Nick Suckley, co-founder of media agency Agenda21, said, “It’s really about getting a share of TV budgets online, rather than increasing digital budgets. There’s a real desire from YouTube and the publisher networks to eat into the TV budgets of ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.
The rollout of Nielsen VideoCensus comes almost a year later than first mooted and 15 months after UKOM and Nielsen revealed the first set of data from their industry-agreed Online Audience Planning System.
The first set of data showed that 26.9m people in theUKwatched streamed video from home and work computers in April, with YouTube, attracting 19.5m unique users to be the most popular site.BBC.co.uk was second (9.1m), followed by Vevo (5.3m) and Facebook (4.4m).
Edited version of an NMA article published 19th may 2011.
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