Last Sept. 25, the Kelsey Blog noted that Google and AOL teamed up to commission a survey from TNS Media Intelligence that shows favorable user (and advertiser) metrics for online video.

The survey’s high-level data points include the following:

1. 75 % of users watch more online video than they did one year ago, and 52 % expect to watch more over the next year.

2. 78 % feel online video ads offer as much or more capability than television to learn about an advertiser.

3. 63 % say they prefer video advertising in order to keep content free.

The survey measured response rates from online video, coming up with numbers similar to those in TKG’s User View. Specifically 64 % of the TNS study respondents claimed taking action after seeing a video ad (44 % went to a Web site, 33 % to a search engine, 22 % to a physical store, and 21 % discussed with friends).

This supports something we’ve said many times that online video combines the traditional strengths of video advertising (entertaining, informative, ability to elicit emotional response), with the direct response capabilities of the internet,  wrote Mike Boland of The Kelsey Group.

The trick is to integrate ad formats that catch those reactions and offer an optimal response medium. Video is a double-edged sword in this sense because it is more complex and content-rich than text offering more potential hooks against which to apply contextually relevant ads but it’s also a great deal more complex and hard to decipher context in an automated way.

Recently, we’ve seen contextual ad overlays (otherwise known as inline ads) that insert small animated windows for a few seconds, during appropriate times in a given video clip. This includes technologies from ScanScout, Adap.tv, Blinkx and YouTube.

Providing the most favorable format and response capability will become more important if users are responding to online video ads in the ways shown by User View and the TNS survey.