Sequent Partners Reveal That 65 Percent of Marketers See Digital Video Is Growing in Importance for Driving Offline Sales

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 18, 2016) - Today Sequent Partners, a leading brand and media metrics consultancy that helps businesses navigate ROI and attribution measurement, released new research, titled Digital Video at the Inflection Point: How Brands are Learning to Use Digital Video for Driving Sales. The in-depth report, underwritten by Eyeview, surveyed more than 200 senior brand marketers, including interviews with leaders from P&G, Honda, Clorox and Bank of America, highlights how brands can harness the power of video to reach consumers and influence their in-store buying decisions.

The study's most noteworthy findings indicate that to demonstrate real ROI from video marketing campaigns, brands must embrace a one-to-one model instead of one-to-many. With this approach, brands stand not only to gain foot-traffic into their stores and drive sales, but they are able to demonstrate ROI directly from their video campaigns.

"When it comes to digital video advertising, marketers have traditionally relied on the medium to deliver branding objectives with less of a focus on sales goals. However, the following research reveals that digital video is at its inflection point of the adoption curve, moving from a branding to a sales tool," said Jim Spaeth, former President of The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and co-author of the study. "Digital video has strong financial returns and unique capabilities to drive sales while still building brands. Indications are that this medium is poised and ready to mature in the next 1-2 years." 

Through in-depth interviews with marketers from today's leading auto, CPG, retail and travel brands, the report highlights the efforts companies are making to embrace this vision, wins they have recorded as a result and what hurdles continue to hold them back.

According to the study, 65 percent of marketers say that digital video is growing in importance for driving offline sales. However, that near-future view contrasts with the current state, where a smaller 42 percent of advertisers see digital video as superior to other leading media.

Marketers today are more likely to view digital video as a branding tool with more than half seeing it as superior for building brand awareness and favorability, telling their brand's story and connecting with consumers emotionally.

"The future of marketing is about business outcomes, not media outputs. Marketers now can deliver on the long-awaited promise of marrying the engagement and appeal of television-quality video advertising with data and targeting capabilities in order to drive sales," said Oren Harnevo, CEO and Co-founder, Eyeview. "Where before marketers always had to choose between promoting the brand or making a sale, today, video can do more than branding and drive significant incremental offline sales for clients across all screens, television, desktop, mobile and social."

Additional key findings from the report include:

Marketers' Perceptions of Digital Video Are Shifting. The study revealed a disconnect between marketers' perceptions and their experience with digital video -- 87 percent reported enjoying positive ROIs with the medium.

Evidence Shows Strong Potential for Digital Video to Drive ROI. A substantial proportion of marketers, 40 percent, already see digital video as a sales driver while 28 percent of marketers recognize it to be both a superior branding medium and a superior sales driver.

Will video be the next performance-driven, marketing category? Marketing categories like search and retargeting have been held to a higher standard of accountability with sales and ROI as the main measures of campaign success. Evidence shows strong potential for digital video to drive ROI as 65 percent of marketers agree that video can be personalized like search and display. Fifty-six percent see that video fits with the current emphasis on data, targeting, efficiency and programmatic. Fifty-four percent believe it's easy to track and prove digital video's impact.

The Death of TV Advertising or TV Advertising Reinvented? Return on ad spend (ROAS) or sales lift per dollar will surpass traditional branding in importance as a measure of digital video success within the next one to two years. This shift from measuring success by media outputs like impressions and CPMs to business outcomes such as sales will drive a major step change with how marketers plan, activate and determine traditional linear TV and video success.

The complete study and findings can be downloaded from the Eyeview website here.

About Sequent:
Sequent Partners is a leading brand and media metrics consultancy that helps businesses navigate ROI and attribution measurement. Founded in 2003, they help clients link marketing, advertising and media activities to financial outcomes. Sequent Partners specializes in marketing accountability and ROI, innovative media metrics development and group facilitation and consensus building. Clients value our objective outside perspective and broad industry experience. For more information visit http://www.sequentpartners.com/

About Eyeview:
Eyeview is a video marketing technology company and the industry leader in outcome-based video marketing. Eyeview delivers superior return on investment through 1-to-1 video. 

Through proprietary VideoIQ^® technology, Eyeview easily leverages brand, product and consumer data to create and deliver 1-to-1 video ads to every consumer and ultimately drive sales. VideoIQ^® provides an elemental knowledge of video variables that powers a results-driven decisioning engine, capable of making billions of decisions each day, delivering the most relevant message to every consumer across television, desktop, mobile and Facebook.

Headquartered in New York City, with offices in L.A., Detroit, Seattle, Chicago and London, Eyeview serves the nation's top brands, including P&G, Walgreens, Lowes, Honda, BMW and Priceline. Eyeview was ranked as the 2^nd fastest growing company in the Tri-State Area by Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™. For more information, visit http://www.eyeviewdigital.com/