We know video ad consumption is increasingly popular, we know that past studies show that adding video ads to your campaign will improve its performance, now Neilson investigates how video brings value to brands on its own. Commissioned by the Facebook Marketing Science team, Neilson analyzed data on the effect of video ads on brand metrics.

In order to find these answers, Neilson analyzed data from 173 of Facebook’s BrandEffect studies that featured video ads. The study focused on three categories of success: brand awareness, ad recall, and purchase consideration. The various groups of ‘viewers’ were divided up determined by the length of time they viewed the video ad, starting at zero seconds.

Using a test-and-control design, the study found that even with the people who saw the video on their News Feed, but did not click to view it, there was a lift in ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration. It was also found that the longer people watched the video ad, the more the lift increased.

From this study it is apparent that even the briefest viewing of a video advertisement will bring about positive effects to brand lift.