Exponential launches new-look video-enabled ad formats designed to heighten audience engagement

Exponential Interactive, the global provider of advertising intelligence and digital media solutions has launched a range of video-enabled engagement ad formats through its display and video audience engagement divisions Firefly Video and Adotube.

Both of the new units represent perfected video ad formats that expand on user interaction. 'Blaze' from Firefly Video is an expandable 'billboard' video format whilst 'Ad Engage' by Adotube expands within in-stream video players.

"The key to successful video advertising is not thinking about it like TV advertising, which the industry seems intent on moving towards. In fact, these new units are what video advertising should have been if it hadn't been invented more than 50 years ago," says David Barnard Exponential's South Africa Country Manager. "The aim is to get viewers to spend as much time as possible engaging with your brand but this isn't possible if you think like TV. Firstly, it must be opt-in, then draw the viewer in gently, give them options and set their expectations. If you don't do these, people will drop out quickly or won't engage in the first place."

Firefly Video's 'Blaze' is a billboard video format that expands in different stages - firstly to a full-size video then to a complete page takeover, depending on how the viewer interacts with it. Results have shown that viewers are far more likely to expand and spend more time interacting with content using Blaze than other Billboard display formats.

Adotube's 'Ad Engage' is a pre-roll ad featuring a "peel-back" option enabling viewers to interact with the ad in different ways, such as accessing additional video and product information. Internal A/B testing revealed viewers are 20x more likely to expand this format than other interactive units and spend 50% longer with the brand than normal pre-roll ads.

Barnard concludes: "Video advertising is still in a nascent form in South Africa with the market essentially non-existent prior to 2012 due to relatively low fixed broadband penetration rates in the country[1]. Exponential has seen a growth of 120% in online video revenue since 2012, an indication that significant growth is expected in the coming years and these improved formats should help accelerate it by helping advertisers to engage much more cleverly and successfully with consumers, whether it's on PCs, tablets or mobiles."

[1]Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2013- 2017