Online editorial content offers key opportunity to reach Olympic fans

It is not just sports fans that will be reading about, and watching, this summer's Olympics. Brands have a great opportunity to reach fans of the sporting event, but also those who really aren't that into sports, too.

by Helen Leggatt

According to Justin Taylor, MK UK at Teads, consumers in the UK are "hungry to devour articles about the Olympics". In fact, research by the firm reveals that Brits will spend, on average, more than half an hour each day reading online content about the Games amounting to 3.8billion hours.

Even those who are not especially interested in sports news will be reading articles online about the Olympics, with 27% doing so just so they can keep up with conversations between friends and work colleagues. Other reasons to read about the sporting event online are to find out the results of an event they did not manage to watch live (58%) and improve their knowledge about an event, such as the current world record holder or the favorite to win (29%).

"With the BBC broadcasting the Olympic Games this year, advertisers are looking to digital channels to ensure their message is heard," says Taylor. "Relevant online content created by premium publishers should be a natural target for brands, with consumers hungry to devour articles about the Olympics. With the ability to target consumers with outstream video ads both contextually and programmatically, premium editorial should be the format advertisers use to reach turn to in order to succeed this summer."

"Delivering programmatically means that advertisers can have an 'always on' approach for their outstream video campaigns and, with the ability to target consumers contextually, premium editorial should be the format advertisers turn to in order to succeed this summer," he added.

Earlier this year, Teads released research that showed video ads placed in premium editorial articles increased purchase intent by 27%. Furthermore, they found that the scroll rate for premium editorial content was slower resulting in a higher engagement rate with advertising.

In social feeds, however, scroll rate was found to be 50% faster, thus while nearly 9 in 10 users view in-article video ads within premium content just 6 in 10 view a video ad within social feeds.