Studies... and Reality

JP posted an interesting article on his blog recently:

"Are video ads really worth the added cost? An iPerceptions study may suggest otherwise. The study found that, despite current buzz around video ads, marketers do not need to spend on fancy interactive ads in order to reach consumers. In fact, consumers are most likely to click on simple text ads..."

It then goes on to point out various stats to support this position, including
"...only 11% of consumers said they were likely to click on video ads..."

The emphasis above is mine. You can probably guess where I'm going with this.

Regardless of what the respondents said, I care more about what they actually do.

Let's compare this study to an online campaign I'm currently working on:
In this campaign we're running some ads with very basic animation, some with fancy animation and interactivity, and some with full-motion video.
The average CTR for the "fancy" animated ads is roughly two-thirds better than that of the "basic" ads, and the average CTR for the video ads is approximately two-thirds better than the "fancy" ads.

Quite clearly consumers - at least those in our target audience - are more likely to respond to the more interactive, more engaging, more video-y ads.

This makes me really question the accuracy and validity of any of this study's conclusions.
And this isn't the only thing that's rubbing me the wrong way.

It also bugs me that they assume that clickthroughs are the main objective for advertisers, or at least a primary measure of success. Yes, clicks are important, but they aren't everything. Perhaps the study as a whole addresses other success measures, but I didn't get that -ahem- perception from their release.
For example:
- what about people who see "fancy" ads, don't click on them, but are influenced to go to the advertised site anyway? (perhaps when they see a simple text ad at a later date and are reminded of the video ad they saw earlier...)
- what about the role of the "fancy" ads in educating and informing consumers? Isn't there some value in a user gaining some insight into an advertised brand before they even get to the landing page? A simple text-only ad might get a click, but it isn't necessarily a well-qualified click.

And so on and so on and so on.