- Positive results from first ad trial on Virgin Media’s on-demand TV service
- Over half of triallists receptive to on-demand advertising
- Spontaneous brand awareness grows by almost two thirds
Virgin Media (Nasdaq: VMED) today announced the findings from the first ever dynamic advertising trial on its on-demand TV service. As part of a three month trial, ads from leading brands including Kellogg’s, John Lewis and Royal Mail, were inserted around selected on-demand programmes from Virgin Media TV, Channel 4 and Warner TV, to 100,000 homes across north London.
Over half, 54%, of Virgin Media’s triallists were positive about advertising when watching on-demand content from commercial providers. 65% preferred to see ads beforehand with ads lasting 30 seconds the most popular format1. Respondents also favoured ads relevant to the programme being watched2, such as hair care ads before Britain’s Next Top Model or ads for homeware after Grand Designs.
Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer at Virgin Media said: “There is a clear opportunity for on-demand television to deliver relevant ads to an engaged and growing audience. Our TV customers watched more than half a billion on-demand programmes during 2008 and the service’s popularity has grown by over 60 percent during those 12 months. By continuing to develop our on demand TV platform, we can offer even more great content and choice to viewers, a compelling opportunity for advertisers and the potential for an additional revenue stream to broadcasters.”
The ad trial drove a 62% increase in the spontaneous awareness of brands and products amongst the triallists. Awareness of individual ads increased by 27% and overall campaign recognition also showed a clear increase of 27%.
Mark Brandon, director of platforms, ids said: "We are thrilled with the results of the trial. On-demand clearly provides an actively engaged audience and this engagement is likely to have contributed to an increase in embedded advertising awareness. We look forward to further discussions with advertisers and agencies about our on-demand offering in due course."
SeaChange International’s (Nasdaq: SEAC) AdPulse system was used during the trial, inserting ads before and after on-demand content in real time, allowing campaigns to be kept up-to-date and specific to time of day or region. Virgin Media’s trial matched ads to programme genres, tested a range of ad lengths, including single 30-second pre-rolls, consecutive pre-rolls and end rolls, and updated campaigns weekly. The number of ads were capped with a limit on the volume of programmes that had ads placed around them.
Virgin Media also worked with SeaChange’s On Demand Group (ODG) for content aggregation and both Rentrak Corporation (Nasdaq: RENT) and ODG to measure content performance throughout the trial. ids, the advertising sales house of Virgin Media, and Channel 4 Agency Sales managed the advertising space for the trial for companies including: Kellogg’s, Lurpak, O2, John Frieda, COI Army, Alberto, General Motors, Royal Mail, Littlewoods, Bodyform, John Lewis, Warner Bros. and Anchor.
