Pre-Roll Prediction

Pre-roll ads are going the way of popups and other intrusive ads. They won't be around in a couple years. And the online video services that use them to monetize their audience won't be around either.

Because the thing you have to understand about digital media is its pervasive and abundant. There is always somewhere else to get the same thing. Digital is write once, read everywhere. Digital media is like a virus. It spreads like crazy.

So if you want to build a business around digital media, you have to be the best place to view/consume the media. Being the only place to see it is a naive strategy that won't work. You have to make digital media easy to find, easy to watch/listen/view, easy to comment/tag/share, and easy to replicate/reblog/republish.

That's the way two way media works. If you don't understand/accept that, get out of the business because you'll be out of it sooner or later.

Pre-rolls are annoying. Users are impatient. They aren't going to wait 10 seconds or more to see the video you are interrupting (because that's what you are doing) with a pre-roll. They'll just head somewhere else where they know they'll find it without the pre-roll.

Now post-rolls are something else entirely. If they are well targeted and entertaining, they'll be viewed as relevant and will be watched with interest. If not, the user will just navigate away. No harm, no foul. And they'll keep coming back to your service for more entertainment.

I am not sure about mid-rolls. I think there's a chance they will work. But I am not sure. I haven't experienced enough of them to be sure.

The people who work in this business aren't sure either. They say "I don't think we know yet what the consumer wants."

They might not know about pre-rolls. But I do. They are toast.

Comments

[Andy Swan]

Right on. Excellent rule of thumb is that advertising that interrupts or annoys the user is doomed to fail in the long run. Google isn't $500/share because they offer amazing looking ads that disrupt people's surfing...content is the king, and ads CAN be content.

[roll your own]

Fred:

TV commercials have been disruputive to viewers since thee inception of the broadcast channel. I agree that the current form of pre roll doesn't work, but that's premarily because advertisers are repurposing existing ads. Short form videos ads will evolve, guidelines, pricing and standards will emerge. WE have seen it with every new ad model. We may not see just "rolls", but dynamic overlays, and lots more product placement.

[Don Park]

What's your opinion of side-roll ads? When I played with my son's Nintendo DS, the experience was very pleasant. I think the two-screen synergy can be recreated in-browser with a bit of innovative thinking. With one screen displaying the video, the other screen can display ads (maybe contextual), closed captions (for foreign content), and commentaries.

[Jeff Persch]

I agree with you on one aspect of this. UGC pre-rolls. But, I do not mind sitting through the pre-roll to be able to watch the episode of Jericho or Heroes I missed the night before. If it is clip surfing, pre-rolls no good. Dedicated audiences will sit through it.

[Mike Orren]

"go the way of pop-ups and other intrusive ads"

Have you looked at a daily newspaper site lately?

I agree that intrusive advertising is stupid. But that doesn't mean it's not in vogue.

http://www.pegasusnews.com/blogs/pegasusnewsblog/2006/dec/10/pests/

[John Dodds]

Thinking aloud, I wonder if post-rolls actually are something else entirely?

If the consumer comes to a place to consume the "entertainment", it is entirely logical to suggest that they are impatient to view what they came for. But surely the same logic applies when they've finished the viewing - aren't they likely to be impatient to get onto whatever they intended to do next?

Now they might well be seduced away from that plan by something that is "well-targeted and entertaining" in the form of a post roll, but if we buy that argument, then we must logically give credence to the same thing potentially happening in terms of a pre-roll.

The longer the entertainment section, the greater the investment of time of the viewer and therfore it might be possible to argue that the post-roll grab factor will be marginally greater - but, of course, the key characteristic of online entertainment is its relative brevity so this may not apply.

Bottom line, my feeling is that both pre-roll and post-roll will ultimately face the same fate while a mid-roll is just the equivalent of the interruptive advertising that has drawn so many people to use TiVo.

I don't know if anyone has definitively assessed the appeal of online content, but it strikes me that the absence of advertising interruption must potentially be a significant factor.

[Ari Paparo]

If by "Pre roll" you mean sitting in front of your computer trying to get through a 30 second commercial before watching a random 1-minute clip, then I agree wholeheartedly.

However, there are grades of "annoying". Is a 5-second pre-roll really that annoying? And what if its a very cool piece of 5 second creative for a relevant product? And what if after that 5 second interruption you get 5 minutes of quality branded content and high bitrate encoding, instead of pirated screen-captures of dubious origin?

There are a lot of problems making pre-roll particularly annoying right now: a) ads are too long; b) content is too short; c) creative burnout (repeating the same ad creative over and over). But these are problems which can and will be overcome as the market gains traction and liquidity.

Remember how annoying punch-the-monkey was back in 2002? We didn't damn all banner advertising then, and we shouldn't make the same mistake with pre-roll now.

[David Henderson]

I blogged on this a while back.

http://www.blogs.dhenderson.com/David_Henderson/?p=171

"Though in-stream ads are popular with advertisers, a new study shows that viewers do not share that enthusiasm.

A study by Forrester Research discovered that 80 percent of web video viewers said in-stream ads - those placed before and after video clips - were “annoying,” and 75 percent said they ignore them,"

Where's the survey on regular TV instream spots. You know the $60B worth of them that US consumers must endure each year?

The $60B assumption is that they work. The reality is they never really did... or at least never really did based on cost and resulting ROI.

Give a user a remote and what do?

Give a consumer a TiVo and what do they do?

Give a consumer a mouse and access to limitless choice and what do you expect? I expect/ insist on no intrusive ads ever!

Ads must transform to relevant content! The enabler will be user attention! ;-)

[Scott]

I agree with Ari that taking a 30sec TV ad and using it as a pre-roll for a short youtube-style clip is going to get really annoying very quickly and users will go elsewhere. However a creative 5 or 10 sec ad, properly targetted and frequency capped could work, its just a new challenge for creative ad agencies that maybe they haven't cracked yet - check out this from a series by vodafone which were done for TV but I think make good pre-rolls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmajIqbm6bc

Also Fred your post assumes that it is the aggregator/distributor that will decide how the advertising model works. What if the content producer inserts the ad at source meaning that wherever you go to view the content it has a pre/post/mid roll already integrated?

[Nic Brisbourne]

I just listened to Gil Penchina of Wikia arguing that free (as in open) content is on its way and that if free (as in open) software is any guide then we will find new ways to monetise collaborative plays (like blogs, YouTube etc.). These will be in addition to advertising.

[CoryS]

Ad:Tech this year was interesting. While the technologies are developing, the "interactive media" and "traditional media" markets are still not fully integrated at the top agencies.

The web community can talk about finding the right technology on this front, and hope for the glimmers of cracking into the $60 B market that advertisers play in, but the vast majority of advertisers do very little on the web and their agencies are not pushing.

Google transformed classified ads for advertisers by making the floor cost to get in a few dollars (instead of a few hundred) while providing national coverage instead of one market.

Does the video ad market have that issue today? If an advertiser is going to bear the cost for quality ad creative, the goal is a broad viewership. With key target demographics off the TV, some means that can transfer smoothly between platforms is preferred for agencies and advertisers, for a number of reasons. That said, maybe the 5 second spot will replace the 15 second as the new short video ad for the web.

The most popular phrase at Ad:Tech was "monetize your traffic" so as annoying as the web ad technology may be, I think we're in for more of it.

[Matt_]

Targeted Pre roll ads might work for long form content while the Main show is loading .Its annoying with short form content like news clips .

Long form content providers will embed 30 second ads into content every 10 mins just like TV ,if they are smart .

Many TV shows are even produced with spots for ad breaks .

[Irfon]

I think pre-roll is a huge turn off,I do have a vested interest here as we at coull.tv link ads to objects embedded within the video stream. Therefore you will get served an ad but it will be only when you choose to interact with object. Its early days but feedback from our most recent branded campaign for company, agent provocateur has been very positive showing 25% click through rates and a healthy conversion.
Pre-rolls make an assumtion of your preferences based on the whole clip and are not subtle. Opt in, trigger based ads are the way forward

[Eric]

I couldnt agree more. Enough said.

[alan patrick]

Posted some of this on MeeTeeVee as well, but the points remain - it depends on the length of the feature length relative to Ad, and Ad relevance. Oh, and what mood you are in, but that is less controllable.

* 10 seconds of pre-roll for a 3 minute song?
* 30 secs of pre-roll for a 3 minute song?
* 5 minutes for a 30 minute show?

Now, how would it change if they were (fairly well) targeted. Different story.

Intrusive ads on the net (pop-ups) by and large failed, but we accept intrusive ads on TV over longer periods - though I do think the US overdoes it compared to other countries.

However, in the digital age it will probably be possible to block even these pre-rolls (see what happened to pop ups) fairly fast.

Thus I think if pre-rolls are short enough, targeted and entertaining (and not too repetitive) they can work.

I don't think post rolls are that convincing a plan, they can safely be ignored and thus will be.

(Mind you the worst plan I saw was one to put mid-rolls in mobile song downloads. So I spliced an Ad into the middle of a song to see....well, you can imagine I'm sure)

In a few days time we are due to release our annual update of our broadband media advertising trends 2007/8, so sign in here if you want a (free) copy of the summary paper.

After all, London is supposedly 2 years ahead of the US now according to Terry Semel (plug plug :)

[Derick Harris]

Fred Wilson's arguments might...emphasis on might... be right. However,this whole business about post, pre and mid rolls is a whole muttering jazz that amounts to precisely nothing.

People want information they can do something about: ie., actionable information. Simple as that! Presumably, advertising, in whatever form it takes, is a call to action for somebody; and, thus, it seems logical (to me at any rate) to spread those calls to action as far and as wide as possible.

Accordingly, this or that self-serving portal is an unlikely venue, which validates Fred Wilson's assumption, which is as follows:

"So if you want to build a business around digital media, you have to be the best place to view/consume the media. Being the only place to see it is a naive strategy that won't work. You have to make digital media easy to find, easy to watch, listen, view, easy to comment/tag/share, and easy to replicate/reblog/republish."

Fred is talking here about content aggregators, but not web sites per se.

Therefore,if we "assume" from the standpoint of money, which really is what these arguments are ultimately about, that advertising is the single common variable that meanders throughout the argument; then, the best place to look for actionable information is to the brand advertisers themselves, because people "respond" to brands.

Attach content of any kind to a brand and then allow that brand itself to attach a "value" to the content -- where value is a function of "push" from the brand, and then and only then "pull" from the audience in the form of easy to use, utility, sharing, call it what you will, so long as the motivation stems from the original push.

Brand names percolate motivation through this push-pull relationship between abstract motivation (the brand name itself) into personal action (on behalf of the brand, meaning trust for example.).

The process might not be rational, but there it is!

[Dustin]

It doesn't seem that ads really influence anything - well except being annoying. That might just be me though.

Sure GoDaddy got a ton of attention after their first ad, but that only got them noticed. The fact that they were $3 cheaper than everybody else at the time gave me reason so switch.

[Jerry]

You are way off. I work in this space and see more and more advertisers moving towards Pre Roll and Post roll Video. I see budgets continue to grow, and more and more requests from Publishers looking to add this format to their sites. The perfomance numbers are also on point. .15 Spots before 3 min clips have 85% completion rate. Mid roll might be the wave of the future but Pre Roll will grow through out this year.

[Ana Yoerg]

What do you think about the conclusion from the OMMA conference that the pre-roll ad is not going to work - but there are no innovative and optimized ad model alternatives? I thought your post-roll idea was good, and also the idea of creating quality content itself - ad integration.