While video advertising creative developed from the ground up for native mobile environments in aggregate outperforms other video creative, embracing key best practices can drive even better results. Top brands that most closely followed recommended best practices for auto-play native video saw a two times increase in purchase intent compared to those that did not, according to the report. 

?The most surprising finding is that auto-playing video specifically created for native, in-feed environments can have a major impact on purchase intent and likelihood to recommend,? said Nikao Yang, senior vice president of business development and marketing at Opera Mediaworks. 

?The data shows significant lift and outperformance of mobile norms across these types of lower funnel metrics that measure consumer action and conversion,? he said. 

?These metrics are especially important to marketers tasked with looking at real results to evaluate campaign effectiveness today.?

Opera Mediaworks and comScore undertook a study to better understand the effectiveness of the still relatively new, but quickly growing, mobile ad format of auto-play videos presented in-feed. By reviewing ads from adidas, Carl?s Jr., Disney, History, GM and others, the research determined that auto-playing video specifically created for native, in-feed environments can impact results such as purchase intent and likelihood to recommend. 

Native, in-feed video that auto-plays is one of the fastest growing sources of premium mobile video inventory, according to the report. 

While auto-play native video has been popularized by social platforms such as Facebook, premium publishers across a number of categories have aggressively adopted the format. 

These ads are a challenge for marketers as consumers often scroll quickly through their news feeds, making it tough for brands to grab their attention. 

On top of this, brands are often cutting their 30-second ads and running them in auto-play native environments, often resulting in ads that underperform. 

To measure the impact of exposure to video ads from a number of different brands, a control was served an invitation to a survey and re-directed to the survey while the exposed group first saw a video ad before being served an invitation to take the survey. The control group and exposed group were demographically similar.

The results show that native video drove significant lift across several brand metrics. 

However, results were even higher for those campaigns that most closely followed creative best practices. 

Specifically, mobile-first creative delivered a 6 point life in mobile ad recall compared to comScore?s mobile norm, a 9 point lift in perception of ad uniqueness, a 5 point lift in likelihood to recommend and a 5 point lift in purchase intent. 

For those brands that closely followed creative best practices, the lifts were even higher. Mobile ad recall increased 11 points, perception of ad uniqueness 18 points, favorability 12 points, likelihood to recommend 15 points and purchase intent 11 points. 

So what are the creative best practices recommended for mobile native auto-play video ads? 

Storytelling needs to deliver the hook immediately upon video start, within the first two to three seconds, given how viewers are quickly scrolling through news feeds. 

Also, videos should liberally use quick cuts and close ups to capture user attention. 

Another best practice is to use over-sized text and calls-to-action as these can help carry the story and reinforce the value proposition. 

Finally, since native environments are typically consumed with the device audio off, sound should be a secondary consideration, with the creative focus placed instead on sight and motion. 

?While not a substitute for full-screen mobile video ads, native video ads can be a strong complement and a key part of the mobile video marketing mix,? Mr. Yang said. ?Historically, we've seen 10 to 15 percent of our budgets go towards native mobile video with that percentage rapidly increasing as brands look to ramp up holiday spend with new ways to reach customers. 

?Automakers, entertainment companies, CPG brands and mobile gaming companies have already begun ramping up spend with Opera for Q4,? he said.