When it comes to the internet, there are some necessary inconveniences that have to be endured by all. Ads being one of them. With Google often thought of as the heart of the internet, it is not surprising that they place such a big emphasis on ads and it is equally not surprising that ad revenues are the biggest income generator for the company and especially through some of its biggest services like Google Search and YouTube. Speaking of which, Google has today announced via its Inside AdWords blog that it is changing the way in which it displays ads on YouTube. At least, YouTube accessed by smartphones.
The announcement details the introduction of ‘Bumper ads’ which will now appear on some videos. These ads are ones which are better suited to smartphones and mobile devices. As such, these ads will be much shorter in duration than the typical 30-second ads often encountered on YouTube and instead, will only run for six seconds in total. However, the difference between the six second and thirty second spots, is that you cannot skip the six second ads – they will have to be watched in full. In reality and although these ads cannot be skipped, they are not vastly different to the 5-second must-watch aspect of some of the longer ads already in use on YouTube. The additional second will not be too problematic or time-consuming for video viewers, although it does seem likely that it will make quite an impacting difference to YouTube ad revenues, once all those single view additional one second timings are added together.
The blog posting notes that during early testing of the Bumper ads, they proved to be highly suitable for mobile-based devices and resulted in better recall and awareness. Points which Google and YouTube will hope further increases both the reach and frequency of ad usage. In addition, the blog posting details that these bumper ads will be more engaging not only due to their smaller duration, but also due to the ads being purpose-designed to be 6-seconds long. You can see an example of one of the bumper ads in the video below.