Lightningcast Study: Internet Commercials Increase Product Awareness, Likelihood to Purchase by as Much as 80%

Hyundai Online Ads Produce Quantifiable Increases in Initial Customer Awareness, Intent to Purchase, Favorable Brand Perception

NEW YORK, May 14 -- Lightningcast, Inc. (www.lightningcast.com), the industry leader in advertising technology and services for interactive broadcasters, today announced the results of a study demonstrating the quantifiable effectiveness of online video advertising for building brands. The study indicates a significantly higher advertiser awareness, greater likelihood to buy the product and higher brand favorability among consumers, specifically due to the online ads.

Lightningcast partnered with Dynamic Logic, a leading independent research company, to quantify the impact of an Internet ad campaign for the Hyundai Tiburon automobile that ran on the Lightningcast network of interactive broadcasting sites. The study showed that online video advertising succeeded in significantly increasing awareness:

  -- Web users exposed to the online ad were 80 percent more likely to
     be aware of the Tiburon than a control group that did not view the ad;

  -- Web users exposed to the online ad expressed a 46 percent higher
     likelihood to purchase the Tiburon compared with the control group; and

  -- 14 per cent of web users who were aware of the ad and expressed an
     interest in purchasing the Tiburon said they had a more favorable
     impression of Hyundai than did the control group.

The Hyundai research involved a randomly sampled group of 628 Internet users, 228 of whom were shown a 30-second ad created and delivered online using video streams. Another 400 people formed the control group. All sampled users completed the same questionnaire.

"Reaching the broadband consumer is of growing importance to Hyundai's online advertising strategy," said James Fabin, Internet Marketing Manager for Hyundai Motor America. "The online ads were a natural extension for Hyundai to use our existing advertisements. When viewed by users over a broadband connection, the ads were less intrusive and seen as more of an integrated part of the viewers' expected experience. The impact and response by consumers outperformed other online ad campaigns we've tried."

According to Molly Hislop, Vice President of Research Services at Dynamic Logic, "Advertisers and their agencies should look to this study for valuable learning on how to effectively harness the power of broadcast style advertising to build brand awareness, communicate messaging and persuade consumers. These results provide keen insight to advertisers looking to place traditional creative online to complement offline media campaigns."

"Extending the powerful impact of video advertising online, in a one-to-one viewer experience, has an extraordinary effect on influencing viewers, and enables advertisers to target them by zip code, age and gender," said Tom Des Jardins, Chairman & CTO of Lightningcast. "The Hyundai study proves the unique value to advertisers of the interactive benefits of online streamed advertising, using the Lightningcast MediaThunder(TM) ad server."

About Lightningcast

Lightningcast (www.lightningcast.com) is the leader in delivering relevant advertising content to the Internet broadcast world. It is the only online advertising delivery company that lets advertisers leveraging their existing radio and TV creative to extend the reach of their campaigns, target by demography, geography, daypart or programming, follow the migration of the most desirable audience into a new medium and new locations and produce an efficient online campaign that reinforces the traditional buy. Major media companies have already chosen Lightningcast as their preferred online content insertion company because it is the best technology two years running, it supports all major players and integrates easily into networks.

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