Ads in online shows work better than ads on TV

A year’s worth of research from Simmons, a media consultancy, shows that Internet video watchers are 47 percent
more engaged by the advertising they watched than were traditional TV viewers, according to MediaPost. The same
study found that viewers were 25 percent more engaged in the content on the shows as well.
That’s excellent news for networks like NBC, which has been making aggressive moves to put its shows online (though
not through iTunes) in advertising-supported streaming and downloadable formats. The network appears more
interested in mimicking the traditional free, ad-supported model of television than it does in pushing paid downloads,
and the Simmons study may vindicate that decision (even if NBC’s strategy confuses some viewers in the process).
The study results will also provide fodder for both writers and producers in the ongoing Hollywood writers’ strike, which
has largely centered on the residuals formula for Internet-provided content. With online video proving so (potentially)
lucrative, both sides may have extra incentive to dig in their heels so as not to leave too much cash on the table for the
other side to snap up.
And all of this is happening at a time when online ad money continues to flow from the great Madison Avenue Money
Spigot. Back in November, the Internet Advertising Bureau reported that Internet ad revenue topped $5.2 billion in the
third quarter of 2007, up a full 25 percent over a year before. Combine that with consumers who actually pay attention
to ads, and you have an adman’s paradise in the making. How long will it be until the serpent of consumer
overstimulation does to the new medium what it has already done to television ads?