Purina's new Friend Fetcher helps you find the perfect pet! Describe your lifestyle or ideal pet with slider menus, and then listen to 3D animated versions of your recommended dogs tell you about themselves.  The descriptions are funny and informative.  Some of the voice-dog matches are hilarious!  Click through and try some out, and if you find the perfect friend, Purina can help you find a pup to adopt!

Online video ads are hot right now. In a recent survey, 60% of worldwide marketers said they would increase their video ads budget in 2009. Not surprisingly, eMarketer projects that the market is to reach over $1 Billion this year, showing a 44% YTY increase in the midst of a recession.

But are consumers as enthusiastic about video ads as marketers are?

According to EyeWonder*, the average video ad is viewed for a little over 10 seconds. A third of viewers don’t even get halfway through the ad.

The average time spent is one of the most commonly used metrics to measure an engagement and brand exposure campaign, along with completion rate and sharing rate.

Comparing video ads to branded web applications shows that web applications are much more effective engagement vehicles:

 

YouTube recently decided to add a “skip” button to its pre-roll video ads. As Zachary Rodgers, managing editor for the ClickZ Network, put, it’s a move that suggests that even YouTube is not satisfied with the quality or performance of its pre-roll video ad inventory. YouTube says they hope this test will lead to better creative and practices for video ads.

This is to a certain degree an unfair comparison; a branded widget is by definition interactive – the user must upload content or otherwise engage with the application in order to participate; video ads are ‘broadcast’ (one way) content.

We’ve used our own statistics here, but interactive advertising will likely show similar numbers across the board. For example, in 2008, the hugely successful JibJab powered Elf Yourself saw an average of 6 minute user interaction. If you have more statistics that either strengthen or challenge the point that branded widgets are more successful than video ads, please share them in the comments or send an email.

*According to Neilson, EyeWonder delivered 64% of in-page video ad impression in the US in 2009. The figures are aggregated statistics of brand-client campaigns they delivered across 11 verticals.

Halloween may be over, but this new app is hot.  With this VideoStar, you can actually become part of the videogame Left for Dead.  Are you hungry for brains yet?