Anyone who has ever watched a video on YouTube has undoubtedly come to dread those five second of pre-rolls. For being as despised as pop-up ads, pre-roll ads surprisingly still remain a popular marketing tool with brands. So why do pre-roll ads suck so much? Because the creativity behind them is usually lack luster.
YouTube’s user experience has worsened since the introduction of the pre-roll, and coincidentally users skip 94 percent of these ads immediately after the first five seconds anyway. The obvious solution would be to make those first five seconds of an ad so compelling that consumers would want to watch the rest, but marketers usually just post their unchanged TV ads, hoping for the best.
To avoid being skipped, Geico has rolled out a series of ads that put emphasis only on the first few seconds of the ads. These pre-roll ads are considered “unskippable” because they are over before a viewer even has a chance to skip them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvcj9xptNOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSpGEjdIN1Y
Certainly they’re comical, but do they sell insurance?
Geico is not the first brand to try this method. In 2013, Burger King released a series of 64 YouTube pre-rolls themed to match the video the viewer was attempting to watch.
Have these straight to the point ads lost the ability to sell a product? Even if you skip the rest of the ad, you were forced to at least notice the brand. Isn’t that the key to marketing or does the interruption just leave a negative perception? Brands must determine whether spending money to create a YouTube specific pre-roll is worth the bother or worth bothering their consumers.
[poll id=”50″]
Cover Photo Source: Bloomua / Shutterstock.com
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://wpmaster.sjadv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Our-Space-The-San-Jose-Group.png[/author_image] [author_info]Jestelle is a junior executive at SJG. She is currently working toward obtaining a BA in Advertising and Public Relations and a minor in Marketing from Loyola University Chicago. Outside the office, Jestelle is an avid tea drinker and devoted Netflix watcher.[/author_info] [/author]