AOL’s latest video study, which surveyed 800 quantitative and 27 qualitative weekly online video watchers, found that the best bet for advertisers wanting to make a big impact with video is with a short-form of the medium.

In the study, long-form video is classified as being over 10 minutes long and short form is under 10 minutes. When watching long-form videos, 41% of respondents said the ads distracted from the viewing experience, versus 31% who felt the same way about ads in short form.

A greater number of respondents (70%) said they had greater brand recall when watching short-form videos, versus long-form (56%) online clips.

Mark Melling, manager of video and mobile at AOL Canada, tells MiC he was surprised by the large discrepancy between the long- and short-form metrics.

“The results were pretty clear that with online videos advertisers get more with less,” he says. “People are doing the same thing online as they do with TV, they walk away from the computer when they are watching long-form videos online. When you’re watching short form content you are engaged, you’re there. They don’t mind watching short form pre-roll on content because it is more targeted towards what you’re watching.”