Study: Marketers prefer social media over ad networks for digital video ads

Dive Brief:

Research by Advertiser Perceptions on behalf of Trusted Media Brands found that 65% of media executives say social media is the most important platform for digital video advertising, beating out video-specific options like YouTube (55%) and ad networks (29%).
65% of agency respondents and 42% of marketers expect to increase spending on digital video advertising.
71% of those surveyed said they “might” use live streaming video in next year, with 18% saying they "definitely will." Facebook Live edged out other platforms as the most popular option for live streaming.

Dive Insight:

Video has become an increasingly important ad format on digital devices, a trend largely driven by the growing importance of mobile advertising. The study affirms those trends, suggesting that marketers prefer sharing video on social media over other ways of getting that message to consusers.

“We can count on more dollars moving into digital video, and social platforms continuing to drive innovation. The trends favor the consumer appetite for shorter content with micro video and branded content on the rise," according to the report. "Consumers should be happy because they will get their video where they already like to go—on social. It seems the genie is not going back in the bottle on in-stream, auto-play video, and we can thank Facebook for that. We think this one however, might not make consumers so happy. At least, not until they get used to it.”

Branded content was the most popular video ad type, beating out in-video banner ads as well as pre- and post-roll video ads and branded content video ads are expected to see the most investment over the next year. The research also found that marketers are willing to reuse 30-second TV spots as online video ads, with 41% reporting they would definitely reuse short-form TV ad content online, 55% reporting they might, and only 4% saying they definitely would not reuse TV content online.

Live streaming video is of particular interest as major social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter move aggressively to launch new capabilities.