Earlier this week, Google announced the inevitable: the
addition of embedded in video advertisements to YouTube.
Appropriately called InVideo ads, these will start to appear
more and more in any videos you watch from now on.
The
blogosphere has mixed
results
about the new feature; publishers are eager to make money off of their
video offerings and users want a clean, uninterrupted experience.
Fortunately YouTube has decided against pre or post-roll ads
citing
evidence that viewers just don’t respond. Instead, as the
name implies,
the ads pop up in-video and only take up the bottom 20% of the player
screen.
Clicking on the ad will pause the video and open another mini
video player inside the one you are watching. Ad metrics are based on
the percentage of the ad you get through and if you should leave within
the first 15 seconds that doesn’t count as an
impression.
Different Beast Than Text Ads
Many think video ads will be another big business for Google
but
video ads are a far different beast compared to text ads. For one,
InVideo ads are only shown on the content of trusted partners for
obvious legal reasons.
Unlike text ads that require no screening
process, video owners must have all of the legal clearances to engage
in commercial activity.
This bottleneck greatly reduces the potential
pool of advertisers unlike the ubiquity and ease of AdSense.
Second, in order to prevent “saturation”
or dampening the user
experience, video ads will have to be deliberately limited. Text ad
units are splattered across the web on millions of blogs taking
advantage of the Long Tail of niche content.
While this means higher
costs per click and per thousand impressions the amount of ad inventory
is inherently limited.
Pop Up Adverts Are Distracting
Finally, ads that pop up in the middle of video, even if for a
brief 10 seconds, are distracting.
Text ads are successful because they blend in with the content; obvious
to the reader when they need them and not a distraction when they are
uninterested.
Watching video is a concentrative task. Anything
that intrudes on the message, stealing the users attention, takes them
away from the story and lowers the experience.
Think about how annoying it is at a public theatre when
someone is
talking next to you or a cell phone goes off.
TBS has been running ads
like YouTube’s in the middle of shows like Everybody
Loves Raymond however YouTube has a leg up by giving the
viewer the freedom to close the ad display right away. See an
InVideo ad in action.
Ads in the middle of YouTube videos may be all the buzz now
but I
feel those enthusiastic of the new feature will eventually grow tired
of it like the rest of us. YouTube user fardousha
sums it up best with the following comment…
If ads invade YouTube, I will desert it.
What attracted me in the first place is ads free quality time. Long
story short, it ain’t a good idea.
There is already a Firefox extension called TubeStop
to stop YouTube ads from even showing up, protecting the users patience
as they take in all that YouTube has to offer.
There is only a certain
amount of aggravation one can take in regards to advertising and
InVideo ads certainly cross that threshold. This is why the YouTube ad
experiment will ultimately be a failure.
Russell Heimlich is a digital media engineer and technology journalist. Catch his thoughts put into words at russellheimlich.com
