Dive Brief:
- While consumers are increasingly migrating to mobile devices and video has proven to be the winning content format on mobile, ZenithOptimedia research found that advertisers are still “willing to pay a substantial premium” for non-mobile video ads, according to Ad Exchanger.
- People spend almost 20 minutes per day watching video on smartphone and tablets, as opposed to 16 minutes per day on desktop or TV, Zenith found, but ad spending on the latter still outpaces the former.
- “Mobile is the dominant platform for consumption, but it won’t become the dominant advertising platform for another two years,” Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting for Zenith, told AdExchanger.
Dive Insight:
It's a mobile-first world, and video is the winning content type on mobile... so marketers are spending more on traditional video ads? That's the bottom line finding of ZenithOptimedia's latest report on video ad spending. While that may seem counterintuitive to some, the problem may be that many marketers are challenged by the mobile format.
The challenge is exacerbated by the different mobile video formats, including horizontal, vertical and 1:1 square ratio, depending on the venue where the video is posted. Linear TV is a video format marketers and agencies alike understand well, which may help explain Zenith's findings.
A data point that should be shocking to marketers is this: 56% of respondents to a ClickZ and Search Optics survey called themselves beginners at mobile marketing.
"It seems that many businesses have not yet developed a truly mobile-first approach to digital marketing strategy," Troy Smith, president of Search Optics, told Marketing Dive. "A full 46% of marketers surveyed said they do not believe that their current mobile advertising spend is in line with their customers' consumption of media through mobile."
