NEW YORK: The great majority of advertising executives continue to regard television advertising as being more effective than online video a new survey has said.

Placemedia, a self-service portal for TV advertisers, surveyed 264 advertising executives to provide insight, preferences and feedback on the subject of advertising. IT found that 89% of respondents thought television video impressions were more important than online video impressions.

A similar proportion (88%) said there were benefits in better targeting in television advertising. The most widely cited of these included better delivery of a message that related to their viewers' interests (57%), more effective use of advertising resources (42%) and better use of advertising dollars (42%).

Other benefits were the increased return on investment (38%), less tune-out from consumers (29%), better delivery of desired goods directly to the consumer (27%) and more efficient campaign development (21%).

A particular advantage of TV over online video came on those occasions when ad executives needed a wide variety of people to see an ad. This was cited by 69% of respondents, far head of any other reasons. These included creating anticipation for an event (27%) and showing a brand had arrived (23%).

The last reason was one that was especially relevant to small businesses, with 95% of respondents feeling that video advertisements on cable or broadcast TV were highly effective.

While the main reason for such ads was to introduce a product to people in the local area (66%), nearly half those surveyed (47%) said such ads could make small businesses look as big as national brands.

But nearly all respondents (97%) noted various things that were keeping small businesses from buying advertisements for broadcast or cable, the most significant being cost, mentioned by 89%.

Other factors included videos being too difficult to produce (42%), complexity (22%) and the belief that other forms of advertising were better (16%).

Research earlier this year from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, however, suggested that a combination of online ads and television commercials could be effective and could boost brand recall by a third.

Data sourced from MarketWatch; additional content by Warc staff