Hasta La Creative!

Ad viewability matters when it comes to generating sales with online video, but not as much as whether the ad is likable. That’s according to a study of Kellogg Co. brands by Nielsen Catalina Solutions to be presented Tuesday at the Advertising Research Foundation annual conference — and it’s news that may warm the hearts of creatives.

The study found that when online video ads reach the Media Rating Council standard (50% of pixels in view for at least two seconds) the resulting sales lift is much higher than when they don’t. But longer view times up to 16 seconds had a much stronger correlation with sales. And ads deemed “likable” by panelists for copy testing firm Ace Metrix had the strongest sales lift of all a 172 index where 100 is the average for people exposed to ads in the study. Surprisingly, hitting the right target audience or the number of impressions mattered relatively little.

“There’s a bit of a crisis of confidence in digital advertising right now,” said NCS Chief Revenue Officer Andrew Feigenson. “I believe the way to get past that is through transparent metrics.” And he said the study clearly suggests “a big difference between in view and not in view in terms of sales impact. But then we deconstructed that, and you see there’s actually a value in views longer than two seconds.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com