Product Videos Found Boosting Purchase Confidence Among Viewers

March 30, 2012

invodo-online-retail-product-videos-march2012.jpgOnline product viewers can have a powerful impression on consumers, according to [download page] a March 2012 report from the e-tailing group, sponsored by Invodo. 51% of respondents, who qualified by having watched product videos on retail or brand manufacturer websites, said that they have more confidence in the purchases they make after watching a related video onsite. A similar 52% said that they are more confident when they watch a product video in advance of making a purchase online, and therefore are less likely to return that product. Videos have other benefits, too: they are said to enhance a site’s stickiness, boost engagement, and promote loyalty by more than 2 in 5 viewers.

Viewers Happy to Invest Time

Survey respondents appear happy to spend a relatively long amount of time watching product videos. In fact, more than 3 in 5 say they will spend at least 2 minutes watching a video that educates them about a category they are planning to purchase, including 37% who will watch for more than 3 minutes. Similarly, 57% will spend at least 2 minutes watching product videos that include a demonstration, although consumers appear less willing to invest as much time for videos supporting a brand’s value proposition, or videos that discuss products without including a demonstration.

Viewers will also watch videos multiple times before making a purchase: roughly two-thirds will watch information-intensive product videos at least two (32%) or more (34%) times.

Professionally Produced Videos Preferred, but UGC Combination Powerful

Although recent BazaarVoice survey results show that user-generated content has become a big influencer on purchase decisions, particularly among Millennials, product video viewers are more likely to prefer watching professionally produced videos because they are more polished (53%) than to watch user-generated videos from peers that they find authentic (41%). They are also slightly more likely to purchase a product after watching a professionally-produced video than after a user-generated one (35% vs. 30%).

March 2012 results from acomScore and EXPO study appear to confirm this preference, with some caveats. The study evaluated a campaign that included a combination of a professionally produced video and a user-generated video among consumers participating in a veiled exercise, finding that the professionally produced video generated a 24.7 point lift in share of choice for the featured product, and a 16 point lift for the brand’s total line. By comparison, the user-generated video generated a 18.7 point lift in share of choice for the product, and a 10 point lift for the total line. Of note, though, is that the two appear to work very well in combination: when exposed to both video types, lift in share of choice for the featured product rose 35.3 points, also increasing 28 points for the total line.

Similarly, when looking at a second group of consumers, although the user-generated video outperformed the professionally-produced video in responses such as emotional intensity (84% vs. 77%), key message communication (60% vs. 55%), and ease to relate (83% vs. 79%), the proportion of the audience exhibiting these responses was higher when viewing a combination of the videos.

Other Findings:

  • When asked the best way to make them aware that a video is available on a product page, the largest proportion of e-tailing group survey respondents chose a button indicating one can view a video (64%), ahead of the video player being embedded in the product page (61%).
  • One-third of respondents said that in the past 3 months they had viewed a product video by clicking within an email they had received.
  • Most YouTube (66%) and Facebook (57%) users have watched a product video within those social networks.
  • 49% of smartphone owners and 61% of tablet owners have watched a product video on their device in the past 3 months.
  • Respondents watch product videos 60% of the time they encounter them on websites.

About the Data: The e-tailing group data is based on an online survey fielded to 1,039 consumers (50% female/50% male) in November 2011. comScore’s Share of Choice metric quantifies the ability of an ad to influence brand preference and has been shown to be predictive of advertising-induced sales. The metric captures actual consumer preference for a brand among a competitive set. Therefore, lifts in Share of Choice have been proven to strongly correlate with in-market sales lifts.

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