IAB is an advertising business organisation that carries out research, develops industry standards, and offers legal support for the advertising industry. IAB recently conducted a study into Live Video Streaming on a Global Perspective.
In partnership with OnDevices, a mobile research firm, the key objective of the study was to gain a better understanding of the consumer experience and attitude towards live video streaming. In particular, IAB aims to uncover trends in device usage (e.g. connected TV, desktop, cell phone), platform preferences (e.g. social, skinny bundle etc), content preferences (e.g. sports, news, events, etc.) and the perception of consumers towards advertisement during live video streaming.
The research provides brand marketers and publishers with a global benchmark and insights into the value of live streaming to engage with audiences around the world.
In order to get the accurate results from the research, OnDevices recruited 4,200 respondents from 21 different nations, 200 from each nation. They designed a 21 question survey and they surveyed in 21 markets. The researchers asked the same core questions to all the respondents. All of the respondents had access to at least one of the devices: Smartphone, smart TV, video streaming device, and PC/Laptops.
OnDevices constructed all the sampling plans and conducted the research using dynamic sampling methods. They made an attempt to get a national representative profile of each market and in case of non-availability of the national representative profile, a weighting was applied for corrections.
The key findings from the study were:
Video content demand continues to grow.
• 70% of the respondents streamed video content at least once a day.
• 47% of the respondents told that they have increased their consumption of live video since last year.
Smartphones are driving live stream demand but still do not command the most screen time overall
The smartphone is used to consume short videos in bursts, defined as less than 30 minutes. In the case of longer videos, they used other devices to consume it.
Social platforms are the most popular source of streaming live video and TV the most popular live video content accessed.
Nearly 2/3 of viewers planned to live stream the FIFA World Cup 2018 globally while half of the respondents planned to watch a video recording on TV or online of it.
The majority of the people all over the world prefer watching free, ad-supported video content over subscription services.
• Around 52% of the consumers globally to be precise, prefer watching free, ad-supported video content.
• There has been a lot of negative stereotypes about advertisements. However, the finding from the report were encouraging for advertisers. The researchers found that people do interact with ads and it can help to build brand preference. It was found that 66% of respondents globally interact with the ads that they have seen on live videos.
Live streaming is a daily activity that provokes social interaction
Conclusion
The study has definitely provided many unique insights to the brand marketers and publishers, regarding the rise of live video streaming. As smartphone penetration across the globe continues to rise along with the access to the internet, the access to smartphone and internet means that advertisers can easily reach out to millions of their targeted audience via live videos or ads on live videos.
The report found that the majority of the consumers all over the world do interact with ads that are shown in the live videos and these findings are definitely encouraging to advertisers who were discouraged by the reports that were published before, regarding the ineffectiveness of ads on live video streams.
For me personally the key to ads on live streams is that they are targeted and do not repeat excessively. There is nothing worse than watching a live stream to be interrupted by the same ad over and over again. This only creates animosity against the ad, the publisher and the brand.
