The Massive Effect Of Online Ads

The Media Yet Once Again

You know, for as long as I have been blogging in the last three years, there are times, that when a story comes with regards to Biometrics, it just seems to keep coming out over and over again, repeatedly, for weeks.  This is what the news cycle seems like to in the Biometrics Industry:  It’s either feast or its famine, with regards to a particular topic.  And of course, there are also times when the news is just dead, overall.  And as we approach the summer months, expect that to happen.  Well, today is one of those news headlines which takes quite well after that feast or famine mentality.  And yep, I think you have an idea of what it is:  That new item called “Neuromarketing”, in which the behavioral responses of potential customers are used to craft the appropriate marketing strategy to sell the maximum number of products and services. 

But in today’s news headline, two new market research organizations are named, and of course, here are the details of this:  “YuMe and IPG Media Lab have released a new neuromarketing study comparing viewer response between television ads and internet video ads. The trial, which took place at the Los Angeles Media lab, used realtime multibometric analysis to gauge attentiveness. Their findings showed that there are drastic differences in attentiveness towards the two mediums. Despite constant distractions, television attracted significantly less attention from viewers than online video ads . . . Internet video ads stole 8.5% more attention overall than television ads, but >18% more of the subjects were fully attentive to the online video ads. The results of the study show a 20% overall increase in attentiveness towards online video ads versus their television counterparts.”  (SOURCE:  http://www.findbiometrics.com/articles/i/8962/). 

Final Thoughts On Today’s Posting

Although the specific Biometric Technologies were not mentioned, I surmise that it was probably the same ones as used before, namely measuring the heartbeat, eye movement patterns, the level of brain activity, and facial recognition (OK, that is a specific one).  The results of this are very easy to decipher:  People are much responsive and attentive to online advertisements than they are to the normal TV advertisements.  In terms of specific statistics, amongst the subjects studied, there was an overall 20% greater responsiveness rate with the online advertisements. 

Most importantly, it was also discovered that customers remember the content of the online ad much more so than the content of the traditional TV ad.  But now, here is the “kinker” in the study.  Although online advertisements receive much more response than the traditional television advertisements, any type or kind of distraction can create a severe impediment to the level of attentiveness to the online ad.  And probably the biggest distraction is the Smartphone.  For instance, with the traditional TV ads, there was a drop of 63% with regards to attentiveness.  When this distraction medium was posed to the online ad, an interesting trend was noted:  There was only a drop of 30% of the attention. 

This surprises me, because I thought the reverse would be true.  But in both mediums, it was cited that the “familiarity of the cadence” of the ads was the biggest factor contributing the attentiveness.  It should be noted though, that it was not very specific  as to how these subjects actually watched these advertisements, especially when it came to the online advertisements.  For instance, did these subjects watch these online ads at the traditional desktop computer, was it on a laptop, or on a netbook, or even the Smartphone itself???  In my view, all of these are very critical variables which need to be looked at closely (I am not saying that they were not, though).  Heck, if the subjects were watching the online ads with their Smartphone, then obviously, a call would be extremely distracting.  But the bottom line is that, I think the era of the traditional TV advertisements are basically gone, or will soon fade away, as this study shows to no small degree. 

Everything can now be pretty much viewed online, especially on those free video sharing sites like YouTube.  As I use YouTube from time to time, even I am surprised what I can find.  And of course, the Internet (at least so far) is free.  It hardly costs the companies who host their advertisements online a cent, versus the millions of dollars it costs for just a one minute spot during the Super Bowl.  A prime example of this is myself.  I hardly watch any more TV.  I now rely heavily on my laptop to view what is out there, and to see videos, and clips of videos. Thus, it is obvious that I would be far more responsive to ads played through this medium, rather than on TV.  Plus, one has to remember that the reason why online ads are much more effective is that of what is known as the “viral effect”, or in the parlance of social media, “viral marketing”. 

Meaning, once a video is played, it can be propagated within minutes if not seconds to other literally hundreds and thousands of other social media sites out there.  Where does one see this effect of viral marketing through the traditional TV ads?  Nowhere.  All you have to do is just change the channel, or just put the TV on mute, or best yet, just shut off for a few moments until the commercials stop playing.  And also with the online world, companies have a much broader reach of potential customers worldwide, as opposed to the normal TV route. And given the online world of shopping as well, this only makes sense.

For instance, suppose your business is based here in the United States, and a customer in England sees your online ad.  With the online store, it is just a matter of a few clicks to get an order and revenue (of course, you will have to pay for shipping, depending upon what you sell).  You can’t do this with the traditional TV ads!!!  It all comes down to a benefit versus cost analysis.  And in my opinion, the benefits of online advertising far surpasses that of the cost of the traditional TV medium.

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