Research indicates that consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands lead other industries when it comes to digital video ad impressions and views.
According to Videology research, the CPG industry accounted for the largest share of digital video ad impressions served on the platform in the US during Q1 2015, with one-quarter of the total. Second-place restaurants trailed by 7 percentage points, and no other industry broke double digits.
Videology noted that CPG had led all other categories for impressions for the past four first quarters (with Q1 2012 being the first).
In a Q1 2015 FreeWheel study, which looked at digital video ads served in the US via the video ad management and monetization platform, CPG ranked tops again, this time for share of views. Fully 22% of digital video ad views were for CPG placements, while No. 2 retail grabbed 18%.
However, other research suggests CPG brands have struggled to gain video ad viewer engagement. According to data from digital advertising platform Sizmek, the start rate for CPG digital video ads was just 10.0% in 2014, which was among the lowest of the more than one dozen industries measured. Just over half of those ads were played halfway through, and slightly over one-third were played all the way through. The average viewing time was 11 seconds.
eMarketer estimates that this year, the US CPG and consumer products industry will spend $840 million on digital video ads, representing 17.0% of total industry digital ad spending and putting CPG in fourth place among industries for digital video dollars.
Based on April 2015 polling conducted by Advertiser Perceptions for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, many of those dollars will come from TV budgets. Among US CPG buy-side professionals who intended to increase their digital video ad spend this year, shifting money away from TV was the top way in which they would fund such growth. Fully 53% were moving money from cable TV, while 45% said the same about broadcast TV. In comparison, 34% said an increase in digital video ad dollars would come from an overall expansion of advertising budgets, 32% intended to shift funds away from nonvideo ads online, and 24% were moving spend away from ads that were neither digital nor TV.
