Video Hot with Ad Agency Execs.

Price and placement.

Online video may be a relatively new medium, but in advertising some things don’t change. The primary concern of many advertisers is still-what used to be called-the editorial environment.

In a survey conducted by video advertising network BrightRoll, 45% of buyers said the quality of surrounding content was of utmost importance, followed by click-through rate (27%) and site placement (25%).

But the ad agency executives must be fairly satisfied; BrightRoll found that 87% of them planned on spending more on online video ads.

“Online video advertising is increasingly being pushed to the forefront of marketing budget discussions amongst agency executives and CMOs,” said Tod Sacerdoti of BrightRoll. “However, there are some important industry challenges that need to be resolved.”

One of the challenges is price, as 17% of the executives said they were concerned with the cost of online video ads compared with TV.

The price of video ads can be relatively high (see How Much Ads Cost).

The executives preferred to buy ads from video publishers themselves or from ad networks (such as the survey’s sponsor, BrightRoll), citing lower price and greater efficiency in executing campaigns.

As for how the ads are presented in the videos, one-half of agency execs had no preference for either preroll or in-banner. In many cases, as one respondent wrote, the best placement “depends on the effort and length of video. For higher CTR, pre-rolls are better. For longer format videos (interviews, etc), in-banner gives more flexibility.”

US Advertising Agency Executives Who Prefer Preroll over In-Banner Video Ads, Q1 2009 (% of respondents)

What is stopping online video ads from taking off?

Executives say their clients still express concerns about issues with the medium itself, such as targeting and reach. Another concern is the lack of research. Most executives said they had not done any research on the effectiveness of video ads.

Courtesy of http://www.emarketer.com