Why You Want Short Video Ads

Video advertising adoption continues to grow. Shorter video ads now perform on par with long promotions in terms of effectiveness for brand lift and purchase intent. Short video services have driven this change together with consumer trust and preference in video.

As video consumption habits evolve, shorter video ads are now proving increasingly effective. This trend is showing itself in ad campaigns across multiple ad platforms that are running branding, lead generation and commerce initiatives. In fact, MAGNA Global, Snap Inc., an IPG Media Lab published an independent study on this topic.

As per the report: "In the early days of short video ads, they were primarily effective at generating awareness and less so when it comes to persuasiveness. Today, however, both short and long video ads have the ability to impact metrics across the purchase funnel. The change can be attributed to the rise of short form premium content, creative tailored for short form viewing, and advertisers simply getting better at communicating in short ads."

While shorter video ads are often leveraged to drive awareness, today they can be just as persuasive as their traditional counterpart - the 15 & 30 second ad. Short video - 06, 15 and 20 second ads are now proving to drive nearly identical lifts in both brand preference (+9% and +10% respectively) and purchase intent (+5% and +4% respectively)."

Condensing & Targeting Your Messages - It can be challenging to condense your messaging into a 6-second ad slot, as opposed to a longer 15-second or 30-second spot. A/B testing of multiple short video ads assists with developing messaging condensing skills. 

Funnel Customization - Customizing your video messaging based on where the consumer is in a purchasing funnel only works if you have identified your funnel. Alternatives to funnel targeting is to create a series of shorter videos that you can use across all parts of your activities or to segment ad programs by goal type; brand, lead, sale, etc.

Recall - On short video platforms, both :15-second and 6-second ads are memorable, but the longer variation holds more value in terms of recall. On long video platforms, 6-second ads were significantly more memorable.

Skipping - On short video platforms both :06 and :15 second videos had low skip rates, :15 seconds videos were more likely to be skipped on long video platforms.

Persuasion - 06 ads were able to quickly get their point across to maximize persuasion - which means more people took action with the 6 second ads. 15 second ads drove higher purchase intent on long video platforms, but less direct action activity.

Age - 06-second ads were persuasive regardless of age. For ages 18 to 44 year olds, 06 sec ads were 6% to 10% more persuasive.  

Bottom Line: The overall view of the data is clear - add short video ads as part of your advertising mix to support audience preferences. Segment your videos and messaging as much as practical. Build the skills to create short video ads and test formats/types to determine what’s most effective.