by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, April 27, 2017

A shift in behavior is changing the way consumers search and find videos, as well as their perception of video advertising. Those habits are becoming difficult to change.

Currently, 57% of consumers discover online video through search; 50% through social feeds; 49% through recommendations; and 34% directly on publisher Web sites, according to research from AOL Advertising.

Some 92% watch videos online every day, and 88% watch more video now than they did a year ago.

The findings suggest that viewers know what they want when it comes to ads. For videos 1 minute or less in length, 64% of consumers expect the pre-roll ad to be less than 15 seconds. Only 9% of consumers expect a 30- to-60-second pre-roll ad.

For videos more than 10 minutes in length, more than half of consumers expect pre-roll ads to be at least 30 seconds in length.

Some 71% of consumers don’t mind ads if they are entertaining, and 67% don’t mind ads that include a relevant product or service. More than 75% said they would rather watch one longer ad instead of several shorter ads throughout a video, although the research did not specify a specific amount of time.

Online video consumption is increasing, but the shorter videos are gaining more traction. About 45% of people watch videos 1 to 5 minutes long daily; 42% watch videos 6 to 9 minutes in length daily, 40% watch videos 10 to 20 minutes long daily, and 31% watch videos 20 mins or longer every day.

The shift has advertisers changing their investments in media. The results from AOL’s latest global research study found that 83% of advertisers plan to increase their investments in video compared with 81% on social; 79%, display; 77%, search; 72, over-the-top or connected TVs; and 72%, content and native advertising.

Among the advertisers that are shifting spend away from broadcast and cable TV, 72% are moving to digital video, and 53% prefer it because of the convenience of being able to access video content on any device.

Despite the upbeat sentiment, there are challenges. Advertisers’ top challenges include network traffic and audience at 23%; quality of inventory, 23%; and quality of consumer experience, 21%. Some 45% of publishers point to having to adapt to too many platforms; 38% load times; and 35%, cost of producing premium video.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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