What's The Best Format For Boosting Purchase Intent?

I came across a fascinating piece of research recently. It was carried out by Dynamic Logic, a leading market research company for DoubleClick, a division of Google which specializes in ad serving.

While the focus of the research was to discover the most effective kinds of ads there are a number of interesting facts that spring up from the findings. DoubleClick investigated four different delivery formats for their advertising messages.

• Static images
• Simple Flash
• Rich Media without video
• Rich Media With video

At the time the research was carried out, simple Flash ads accounted for 55 percent of ad serving volume with any kind of rich media making up a mere 6 percent.

Once they have established the four different formats, the authors break down the purchase funnel into five branding goals as follows:

• Aided Brand Awareness
• Online Ad Awareness
• Message Association
• Brand Favorability
• Purchase Intent

Despite the overwhelming preference for Flash ads the research shows that rich media combined with video is the most effective format for 4 out of the five branding goals.

Just focusing on purchase intent, the report found that exposing audiences to rich media with video can increase the intent of users to purchase more than any other medium. The report states unequivocally, “When your goal is to sell, use rich media formats.”

The research concludes that rich media with video is “a significant improvement over simple Flash” and far and away the best format for achieving most branding goals.

Check out the report for yourself here and let me know what you think.