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Loading ...Yesterday, on Twitter, new follower Mike Keliher (@mjkeliher) pointed out how he wouldn’t tolerate being forced to see an pre-roll ad in order to view a 15 second story. When I asked him why he felt so strongly, his answer was:
@jptrenn 99.9% of the time: entirely irrelevant. More importantly, disrespectful of my time.
I’m no where nearly as absolute on that. I realize that these media properties need to make money and I see pre-roll as a legitimate concept in theory. Still, I don’t blame him for feeling that way. Media properties apply pre-roll entirely wrong, with no concern for the viewer. So here’s a few suggestions. Strong suggestions.
1) Above all, don’t put pre-roll on tragic stories
The last thing I want to see when I click on a story about that tragic accident that killed 68 people, including 23 children, is a frigging commercial for indigestion. While other times pre roll ads are inconvenient, at times like this, it is completely offensive.
2) Don’t put pre-roll on breaking stories
Sorry, but while these stories are the ones most likely to be clicked on, when people click on them, they often so so with as sense of urgency. To the viewer, the content is compelling and they don’t want an interruption. It could hurt the advertiser as it hurts the viewer experience.
3) Make the ads relevant
If I go to view an add about baseball spring training, give me a travel ad to Florida or Arizona. Or one about sports. Don’t just something up there. As Mike says, 99.9% irrelevant.
4) One pre roll per user session please
Otherwise, it begins to ruin the experience.
5) If more than one…
…then make sure there’s about 4-6 news stories viewed between ads. And don’t show the same one twice.
I write all of this because I understand a believe that most news sites thankfully don’t come with subscription fees. They make their money by advertising. So I’m trying to find a reasonable balance.
What are your thoughts?
Filed under: Online Advertising, Online Branding, Online Video, Web Ads, Web Advertisers, Web Advertising
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Glad I could serve as a one-time muse.
For what it’s worth, *I’m* not even as absolutely opposed as I was in that message. It was an outburst of dissatisfaction, but it’s not far off from how I feel most of the time.
Your suggestions above all make great sense.
Also, for the sake of context: I was trying to view a video clip of the security-camera footage of the Times Square explosion from the other day. I wasn’t in the mood to be pitched some investment advice. I just wanted to see the extent and impact of the explosion.
Thanks for the post.
Exactly.
You click on a video to hear about would could be a low level domestic terrorism attack and you get an ad first. Makes no sense. Pisses me off.
Good post. There is a site over here in Holland aimed at women who like to play online games. All these games are based on Flash and take a little time to load, the ads are shown during loading time.
Obviously loading is usually a lot quicker than the ads they show, but because the game runs fluently as soon as the ad is over most people are quite happy with it.
Youtube for example could do something similar, especially with its longer videos. As you rightly point out, nobody wants a 10/20/30 second ad for a 15 second video.
Nice post. Just because you’ve moved your advertising from TV to the internet doesn’t mean you should keep interrupting me in the same obnoxious way.
Let us pray:
Relevancy. Relevancy. Relevancy.
Brevity.
Amen!
Daan, I agree with you and I think that YouTube would be well-served that YouTube user experience would me much better were they to pre-load the videos a little bit, since even most DSL under FIOS tends to skip and stop a few times as the YouTube ad tries desparately to download ahead of the viewer’s progress. That would be a perfect time.