Google takes aim at TV as it claims YouTube ads drive more sales
Google has issued a fresh attack on TV ad budgets by claiming that YouTube ads are more effective way for brands to pull in revenue.
The internet giant studied campaigns across eight countries, saying that it found in 77 per cent of cases "YouTube delievers a higher return on investment than TV".
The survey analysed 56 case studies from brands over six industries and was conducted alongside research partners like Kantar Worldpanel and BrandScience.
In the instance of 17 of the case studies looked at Google said: "In more than 80 per cent of media mix optimizations we studied, data showed that the recommended spend on YouTube should be at least double that of current levels."
The report will be unveiled at Advertising Week Europe today (20 April) in a session titled 'The (Entertainment) Revolution will not be Televised'.
“We found that while TV maintains a powerful impact in the digital age, digital video is under-invested in several categories we measured in the UK, France and Germany,” said Lucien van der Hoeven, general manager EMEA at MarketShare, one of the companies hired by Google to conduct the analysis.
Google's numbers follow on from research released yesterday showing that online video provides 50 per cent higher ROI than TV advertising. The research has unsurprisingly provoked a strong reaction from the TV industry, with TV marketing body Thinkbox saying the research "missses the point" of why brands use TV promotions.
Thinkbox research and planning director Matt Hill said: “The true value of TV advertising is not just its return on investment [getting people to buy stuff], but that it achieves the best return on investment at the highest levels of investment.
“TV builds brands better than anything else and creates the most profit," he added.
Thinkbox commissioned research in 2014 which found that TV provided more return on investment that any other medium, revealing that it gave an average return of £1.79 for every £1 invested during 2011-14.