Increased brand awareness is one the ultimate objectives sought by any company when launching a ad campaign. The final goal is increased sales, and therefore increased benefits for the company. However, brand awareness is considered as the previous step to any purchase.

Entering a consumer’s mind is no easy task. An let’s not even talk about position a brand as the best option in a specific market segment. The choice of the channel through which to reach our target customers is key for the success of any advertising campaign. Social media is increasingly becoming becoming a more attractive alternative for advertisers, mainly due to low cost, ample reach, and high repercurssion advantages offered by these channels.

Unruly Media has recently published  “Social Ad Effectiveness”  on how  social video recommendations significantly impact traditional brand metrics. Recommendations are shown to directly increase brand recall and association, as well as video enjoyment. Viewers who enjoy video content are shown to have higher brand favourability and purchase intent. This study has analyzed video online marketing campaigns of 4 large consumer brands: Guinness, Coca-Cola, Cornetto and Energizer.

The survey investigated the impact of recommendation on brand metrics amongst 18-34 year olds to determine social ad effectiveness, finding that social recommendations dramatically increased ad performance. We find the following findings amazing:

• Enjoyment of the video increased purchase intent by an 97% and brand association by 139%
• Video enjoyment rose by 14% amongst viewers who had viewed following a recommendation
• Brand recall and brand association rose 7% amongst viewers who had been recommended the video versus viewers who found it by browsing

One of the most significant findings is that viewers enjoy recommended videos more than non-recommended videos. A 14% increase was noted in the number of people who enjoyed the video following a recommendation versus those who had discovered it by browsing. Furthermore, a recommendation reduced the number of people who did not enjoy the video by 41%!

It has been widely acknowledged that viewer enjoyment of branded video is important because it has a direct impact on brand metrics. Viewers who enjoyed the video they watched demonstrated higher brand recall (+ 14%), higher brand favourability (+35%), higher purchase intent (+97%) and much higher brand association (+139%)  than their counterparts who did not enjoy the video.

73% of viewers who had arrived at the video following a recommendation correctly recalled the brand when prompted, compared to 68% of viewers who had browsed to the video. According to Unruly media, this 7% uplift suggests “that video viewers are in a more receptive and attentive frame of mind following a recommendation, allowing brands that produce and distribute social content to benefit from closer communication with their audiences“.

One of the most interesting results is knowing the reaction of users after watching the video:

• A notable 49% of viewers purchased the product that was advertised in the video within 3 days of the view!
• 38% of the audience spoke to someone in person about the video, demonstrating how social video filters into real-life situations.
• Also worth noting are the most immediate actions: commenting the video (13% of users), visiting the brand’s website (9%) y and sharing the videos on a social network  (9% – rather low from our prespective).
• To a lesser extent, users also search about the product or brand, visit it’s social media profiles and send the link to friends.

The main conclusion of the study is that impact of the recommendation on consumers can been deemed as significant.

• Viewers are more likely to enjoy a video when it has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (14% higher enjoyment)
• Viewers are more likely to recall a brand name when the social video has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (7% higher recall)
• Viewers are more likely to engage with an ad‟s messages when the social has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (10% higher brand association)

Proof of the efficiency of online as an advertising channel is once again provided. Social video significantly increases brand awareness and attention. Ultimately, the real power of social video lies within recommendations, not only from peers in social media environments, but also from authoritative blogs and news sources covering advertiser content editorially.