Aligning ads with video content boosts brand impact

Ads that align with the video content being seen have a stronger impact with viewers, increasing ad memorability, brand impact, and other metrics, a new study from Integral Ad Science finds. 

The Mind on the Stream, conducted in partnership with Neuro-Insight, measured the brain activity of 137 participants in a controlled environment that simulated an ad-supported streaming experience to understand the impact of context matching and ad repetition on CTV. 

Why ad alignment matters

The research showed that viewers have lower interest in ads with increased repetition on CTV. While little to no drop-off was seen in brand impact upon the third viewing of a CTV ad, a fourth viewing started to show significant decreases of -26%.

But ads aligned with the video content can mitigate the impact of repetition and perform better among viewers, despite increased frequency.

Key findings 

• There was a 14% increase in brand impact when ads matched the tone of the content being viewed on CTV. 
• There was a 39% increase in brand impact when ads matched the context of the content being viewed on CTV. 
• There was a 49% increase in brand impact when ads matched both tone and context of the content being viewed on CTV.
• Ensuring ads with increased frequency match both context and tone of the content can help improve brand impact by up to 82%.

Sourced from Integral Ad Science