Research from mobile ad company Rhythm NewMedia shows that video content has the backbone to hold consumers? attention.

Rhythm NewMedia?s fourth-quarter results give a peek into which types of mobile video are grabbing mobile users? eyeballs and how it stacks up to other types of advertising. Rhythm claims that online videos average a 66 percent completion rate, marking a 35 percent increase for mobile advertising.

?Completion rate is the single, most-important metric when talking about mobile video, which is what marketers should care about,? said Lisa Abramson, director of marketing at Rhythm NewMedia, Mountain View, CA.

?Marketers can include in-stream videos and full-page ads to increase the engagement of their mobile campaigns,? she said.

Rhythm NewMedia is a mobile ad company that specializes in rich media and video content. Media partners include CBS, Sony, ABC and NBC Universal, and the company works with advertisers such as Disney, Chase, McDonalds and Procter & Gamble.

Glued-in viewers
In-stream mobile video can either show up before a video clip or as a break between longer video content. Pre-roll videos appear when users open applications or between mobile activities such as game or screen changes.

According to Rhythm, mobile in-stream video completion rates are higher than online, pointing to how powerful a video can be on a small mobile screen.

Seventy-six percent of campaigns running with Rhythm included an in-stream video component in the fourth quarter of 2011. Additionally, both in-stream and pre-roll mobile video made up 93 percent of the ad company?s campaigns.

Android users are gobbling up mobile video with a 92 percent completion rate, per the study. IOS owners are also hungry for mobile video content with a 87 percent completion rate.

The study measured the completion rates of 15-second and 30-second clips.

In-stream video for 15-second clips generated a 89.2 percent completion rate, and an 88.3 percent completion rate for 30-second pieces of video content.

Rhythm?s report also looked at how adding an engagement can help mobile video completion rates.

Not only are consumers watching a video, they also want to interact with a brand while watching a video ad.

Interactive in-stream video advertisements that include an option such as to "like" a brand on Facebook or add a calendar to an event increased engagement rates by 25 percent. 

In the study, the average engagement rate was .97 percent with users who watched the video and took an action to a Web or mobile site. By including additional options such as links to social media, engagement increased to 1.21 percent.

The report also found that consumers were more likely to watch video from holiday-themed campaigns. Holiday-specific content had a 92.1 percent completion rate, and non-holiday content had a 89.1 percent completion rate.

Mobile fill
The study looked at how full-page ads can benefit from in-stream mobile video.

In full-page only ads, the engagement rate was 9.4 percent. To compare, full-page ads that included an in-stream video saw an 11.5 percent engagement rate, marking a 22 percent increase.

Given the size, image quality and media-consumption behavior of tablets, the devices generate a high engagement rate, per the study. The average engagement rate for a full-page tablet ad saw an average 21 percent engagement rate, showing how marketers need to develop a fully-rounded tablet advertising strategy that is separate from smartphones.

Based on the study, advertisers have a tremendous amount of opportunity to include mobile video into campaigns.

Mobile video captures a user?s attention instantly and keeps them in the same activity for a set period of time, which is a powerful marketing tool for brands.

?In 2012, I think we will see a divergence of premium video from long-tail and user-generated content with a shift in demand and pricing,? Ms. Abramson said.

?Premium content will be more in demand on smartphones and tablets going forward,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York