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Here's a stat you'll find interesting: people are twice as likely to press the "Play" button on a video ad than they are to click a standard JPG or GIF ad. The bad news: they only watch two-thirds of the ad. But they did press "Play."

The information comes from a recent study conducted by digital marketing company DoubleClick.

The study of 300 participants over a six month period showed that consumers were much more interactive with video ads, which makes DoubleClick assume the format is very effective.

People, however, tend to get click happy. Before Internet video took off, they were clicking just about any link they saw out of reflex. But at least for now it seems users really like that "Play" button.

"Online video ads are quickly becoming the medium of choice to drive both brand awareness and sales," said Rick Bruner, research director at DoubleClick.

"The results show that there are clear ROI advantages to placing video ads. We expect to see strong growth in the number of companies reaping the benefits of online video advertising in the coming months and years."

When the entire control panel on an Internet video player is included, users had a 1.23 percent interaction rate – for the "Play" button alone (or replay if the video starts automatically) the interaction rate is 0.32 percent. Compare that rate to the click-through rate of image ads, which is between 0.1 and 0.2 percent.

Most of the video ad units tested were between 15 and 30 seconds. Users watched for about 19 seconds of 30-second spots and about 10.3 seconds for 15-second spots. DoubleClick says there was little difference between ads that expand to larger windows and ads that remain in the standard frame.

Video and audio ads have traditionally been thought of as branding mediums more than direct-response ones. But the results of this study show response rates considerably higher than image ads, ranging between 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent.

"What's particularly exciting about these types of campaign performance benchmarks is that they provide marketers with an important leap forward in measuring audience engagement and results that simply does not exist in traditional TV advertising. The best standard data you get on audience measurement of TV commercials is limited to reach and frequency or specialized brand studies.

"However, online video metrics available today, like interaction rate, play rate, video completion rate and so on, give advertisers much greater insight into how consumers are actually engaging with the ads and their brands," said Marianne Caponnetto, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for DoubleClick.