Bye Bye Banners, Hello Native and Video

jeep native yahoo featuredBanners are in decline, with native and, in particular, video set to be the mobile advertising stars of the future. That’s the key finding of a survey conducted by Advertiser Perceptions on behalf of Trusted Media Brands (formerly the Readers Digest Association).

The survey was conducted in December 2015 among 283 US media decision-makers from the Advertiser Perceptions Omnibus Panel. Respondents were executives involved in digital/mobile and social advertising.

While 63 per cent of respondents used display banners in mobile last year, only 45 per cent expect to do so this year. 45 per cent plan to use video in 2016, with 46 per cent of total respondents planning to use pre- or mid-roll video and 45 per cent planning to use native in mobile as well. Surprisingly, this is down from last year’s figure of 50 per cent. Measuring the success of native was cited as the formats top challenge. 63 per cent of brand and agency marketers agreed that mobile phones should have ads.

“Our survey showed that native gets high marks for giving the message an authentic brand voice and imparting a superior user experience, while the increased brand awareness and engagement of video are considered a top benefit for both marketers and agencies,” said Rich Sutton, Trusted Media Brands’ chief revenue officer. “With video on mobile commanding better CPMs than desktop for many publishers and native CPMs four to five times that of banner monetization, the advantages for these two formats are clear.”

The top three benefits of mobile native ad formats cited by agencies and marketers are that they are less intrusive (44 per cent); increase brand awareness (32 per cent); and foster better engagement and interaction (31 per cent). Among agencies, 31 per cent cited the more authentic brand voice native ads lend, while 33 per cent of brand marketers noted the better user experience as a benefit.

Sight, sound and motion give video the advantage of being an ad format that works for marketers at both the top and bottom of the consumer purchase funnel. Increased brand awareness was noted by 47 per cent of marketers as the most important benefit of video ads on mobile, followed by engagement (34 per cent) and how well suited video is to mobile consumption behaviours (31 per cent). Among 26 per cent of agencies, video is seen as providing a more authentic brand voice, while 25 per cent of marketers believe it impacts lead generation.

You can download a whitepaper with all the survey results here.