Near half-billion £ rise on smartphone video ads as phones overtake computers for internet time 

 Advertisers spent £476 million more on smartphone video ads in 2017, making it the fastest-growing online ad format, according to the latest Digital Adspend report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK and PwC.

This was a rise of 69% on 2016 and took total spend on the format to £1.17 billion. Video ad spend overall (including phones, computers and tablets) increased 47% to £1.61bn. Thus, 73% of all video spend now goes on smartphones.

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Sky overtook Procter & Gamble as the biggest spender on traditional advertising in the UK in 2017, increasing year-on-year spend by 2.7% to £197.1m, reveals Nielsen data released today.
P&G’s spend dropped 1.4% versus 2016 to £196.8m, as did BT’s who retained third place despite a fall of 3.8% to £144.1m. 

Nielsen’s figures include the seven major traditional media formats but exclude internet advertising.

Tesco (up 71.6% to £89.5m) and Samsung (up 43.5% to £66.6m) had the largest annual increase among the top 100 spenders. Consequently they became new entrants to the top 10 – jumping 14 and 18 places, respectively – replacing Amazon (down 16.5%) and furniture retailer DfS (down 13.5%).

Waitrose, Confused.com and Google completed the top five in terms of the biggest percentage rise in traditional ad spend.

 

“It was quite a chalk and cheese year in terms of how the very biggest advertisers changed their emphasis on traditional advertising,” says Barney Farmer Nielsen’s UK commercial director. 

Ad viewability hits record high

UK ad viewability levels have hit their highest level since records began back in the second quarter of 2014, according to the latest quarterly benchmark report from ad verification firm Meetrics. 

In the first quarter of 2018, the proportion of banner ads served that met minimum viewability guidelines rose from 56% to 59% – the first time levels have risen for four consecutive quarters.

"It’s the highest level since our records began and four straight quarters of growth is a reliable indication the industry’s efforts to tackle viewability are paying off,” said Max von Hilgers, Meetrics’ CEO and co-founder. “Alongside this, campaigns are increasingly being optimised towards viewability and we’ve seen a drop in the number of impressions. This suggests a move towards more careful placements – a case of quality over quantity, not something the industry has historically been renowned for but an encouraging sign for the future.”


 
However, despite the rise the UK still only ranks fifth among the seven other European countries in which Meetrics measures viewability. Austria (71%) leads the way while Switzerland is bottom (50%).


 

Ads are deemed viewable if they meet the IAB and Media Ratings Council’s recommendation that 50% of the ad is in view for at least one second. 

 A "seal of approval" by independent industry body seen as best way to improve quality

Only 5% of media and advertising professionals believe commercial research studies on digital advertising are of a good enough quality.

The influence of the sales agenda of the company owning the research is seen as the biggest obstacle to producing good quality research – cited by 57% of the 220 industry professionals interviewed online by Inskin Media and Research Now SSI. Nearly one in four (23%) generally disregard commercial research projects as nothing but marketing/sales tools while 19% consider them largely useless due to quality issues.

Research agencies (scoring 4.0 out of 5) are regarded as producing the highest quality research, narrowly ahead of industry associations (3.9) and measurement/ad validation vendors (3.6). Media sellers (3.1) rank last in terms of the perceived quality of research.
 

“The industry has been deluged by studies on digital advertising over the last decade, most of which is used as a Trojan horse to promote a sales agenda,” said Steve Doyle, Inskin Media’s CCO. “Unfortunately, much of it isn’t fit for purpose and it’s tended to tar everyone with the same brush. Paradoxically, it’s also created the problem of undermining genuine findings even if the company doing the research has a commercial interest in proving them, so the results are mistakenly ignored.”

Doyle adds that he’s “aware of the irony of producing a research study saying research quality is inadequate.”

The quality and detail of the methodology (cited by 61% of respondents) is the most important factor in assessing the validity of research, followed by its relevance to current industry issues (54%).

A "seal of approval" awarded by an independent industry body is seen as the most effective way to improve how people perceive digital advertising research (cited by 71%) narrowly ahead of a detailed methodology explanation for every study (70%).

“The rise of online survey platforms means anyone with a few hundred pounds can produce one but hopefully the industry will start demanding far more rigour and detail about the methodology, as well as taking into greater account the agenda of the company producing it,” says Doyle. “Indeed, the support for an independent seal of approval is reminiscent of what’s happened in Germany. The major trade bodies along with Google and Facebook launched ‘Qualitätsinitiative Werbewirkungsforschung’ – an initiative to increase transparency and quality in advertising effectiveness research.”

Industry professionals most prefer to hear about the insights from research in face-to-face presentations (cited by 56% of respondents), followed by infographics (45%) and trade magazines / blog posts (37%). Webinars are the least favourite method (cited by just 14%).

 

Gaviscon’s “Tim and Tom” has fended off both M&M’s “red and yellow” and KFC to retain the title of the most effective TV ad of 2017, as advertisers relied heavily on humour and novel imagery to grab viewer attention as dual-screening and ad skipping becomes increasingly prevalent. 

The top ads comes from the UK’s most comprehensive on-going analysis of TV advertising, conducted by Nielsen, which involved over one million survey results across 3,600 ads in 2017.

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