COVID-19 Impact on Video Creative & Performance
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing recovery efforts, continue to change consumer purchasing behavior, impact ad budgets, and alter the creative brands produce. QuickFrame is utilizing its Video Intelligence technology to uncover advertisers' reaction to the global health crisis and what's driving performance so you can effectively evolve your strategies. This site contains just a sample of our analysis, looking at four video attributes—messaging, people, number of people, and animation.
Overall Spend & Performance Trends
The Main Idea:
Brands continued to reduce budgets in June after a surge in April and are facing an increasingly expensive media landscape. The smartest advertisers, however, are still able to optimize campaigns effectively and drive improving results.
Average CPMs
CPMs (as of 6/26) are down 19% on Facebook and up 10% on Instagram (compared to the beginning of COVID - week of 3/9). CPMs hit their low the week of 3/16 and have since been rising approximately 8% WoW. A dramatic decrease was seen at the beginning of June but CPMs quickly rebounded.
CPMs & Spend
Average spend was down 19.5% from the week of March 2 to the week of March 23, but as advertisers that were seeing success scaled, overall spend increased 121% between the weeks of March 16 and April 20. Average spend has subsequently decreased from the end of April to the week of June 22, netting out to a 65% decrease from the weeks of March 9 to June 22.
CPMs & Impressions
Lower CPMs coupled with increased average spend resulted in a 73% increase in average impressions from the weeks of March 16 to April 20. As CPMs have increased since end of April and spend decreased, impressions have dropped.
CPM & CTR
After a decrease in CTR at the end of March, advertisers have optimized towards the new normal and CTR has seen a subsequent increase of 40% from the end of March to the week of June 22. CTR, however, is not trending upward at the same rate as spend is decreasing, likely because the unstable economic environment is impacting consumer spending habits.
Messaging Trends
The Main Idea:
The economy is hurting and it shows in the data. Brands are heavily investing in ads that promote discounts and low price points as they seek to reverse slumping sales—a message that is resonating well with customers. As the pandemic continues to rage on, however, it's worth keeping an eye on videos communicating "Health" benefits. This message is performing well and is seeing increased usage and spend from brands.
Frequency of Usage
Ads messaging "Sales" have seen the biggest increase in usage from the beginning of the year to the end of June— demonstrating just how willing advertisers are to promote discounts in the slumping economy. "Convenience" messaging, on the other hand, has seen the biggest decrease in usage— a 60% reduction from the post-January peak in February to the current time.
Spend
While more brands are running ads promoting "Sales", overall spend against these ads is down (but has decreased at a similar rate as the overall decrease in average spend on Facebook and Instagram). Investment in "Home" messaging dropped off mid-May, as performance was poor (likely driven by fatigue of this messaging in market).
CVR
Ads communicating "Sales" drove the second highest CVR in June, even with increased spend. The CVR of "Health" related ads has remained relatively stable throughout the year, but actually drove the highest CVRs at the end of June—a message to continue testing as COVID-19 cases increase in many parts of the world.
People vs. NO PEOPLE Trends
The Main Idea:
At the outbreak of the pandemic, brands initially scaled back running ads with people, but that trend has been reversed as live action production has become easier to accommodate in states that are reopening. Videos without people, however, are still seeing the best CVRs.
Frequency of Usage
At the beginning of the pandemic, brands scaled back on videos with people. During June, however, advertisers returned to using people in videos with pre-COVID frequency.
Spend
Videos with people saw a steep increase in average spend during March (in-line with the rate at which overall spend increased during that time). From the end of March to the end of April, however, spend on videos with people decreased 12% faster than the average. Since the end of April, videos with people have seen a 73% decrease in average spend and videos without people have had a 70% decrease.
CVR
The overall average CVR has dropped 25% from the end of April to end of June, but videos with people have seen a 45% decrease in CVR. Videos without people have seen a 40% increase in CVR, even with relatively stable spend.
Number of people Trends
The Main Idea:
While brands may be back to running more videos with people, they are focused on videos with just 1 person (perhaps driven by ongoing social distancing guidelines). These 1-person videos, however, are not seeing improved CVR. Instead, it's videos without people that have seen the biggest increase in CVR during the pandemic.
Frequency of Usage
From March to April, videos with 3+ people saw the largest decrease in usage, while videos with 2 people or no people have seen the largest increase. Since the end of April, however, only videos with 1 person have increased in use.
Spend
While videos with 2 people and without people saw an increase in usage from March to April, videos without people scaled spend 2x faster than the scale in usage, compared to an equal scale in spend and usage for videos with 2 people. Since the end of April, average spend for all videos (regardless of the number of people they contain) has decreased—videos with 3 people have experienced the largest decrease.
CVR
Only videos without people have seen an increase in CVR since the end of April, even as videos without people have had the same usage and spend as videos with 2 people, which saw CVR drop 48%.
Animation Trends
The Main Idea:
Brands continue to lean on partially animated videos, likely reflecting the continued reliance on post production during this time. And this strategy is paying off for now—while the CVR of partially animated content is slightly lower than non-animated videos, spend is higher for partially animated content.
Visual Legend:
Fully Animated
Partially Animated
Not Animated
Frequency of Usage
Usage of fully animated videos spiked 38% from the end of March to mid-April. Since then, brands have only increased their usage of partially animated videos—4% from mid-May to end of June. Fully animated videos and non-animated content have both decreased in usage during that time.
Spend
From the end of April to the end of May, non-animated content has seen the largest pull back in investment—a 54% decrease, 2.7x higher than the average. Between the end of May and the week of June 22, all content types saw consistent declines in spend WoW.
CVR
Non-animated videos saw the largest drop in CVR from end of April to end of May, even with the drop in use and spend. Since then, partially animated and fully animated content have seen reduced CVRs similar to the average trend, while non-animated videos saw a slightly slower decline.
Want to Learn More?
QuickFrame's Video Intelligence technology reveals what drives performance for your brand in particular, what video trends you should be paying attention to, and what competitors are doing on different platforms.
Contact us to learn more!
