It’s time to stop fighting and embrace the six second ad
A lot can be done in a short amount of time, which is something marketers need to realise if they will ever succeed in the inevitable six second ad future, writes GumGum's Jon Stubley.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that people don’t like autoplay sound-on pre-roll ads.
We know as consumers we hate them, we know as advertisers that people hate them (we give them a countdown to when they can skip them) but pre-roll remains the most common format for digital video advertising.
Why?
As with many issues in the digital industry, the answer stems from a legacy issue. When TV eyeballs began to move from linear TV to digital video, advertisers followed. And instead of reinventing the wheel they bought with them the concept of the 15-30 second; a familiar and comfortable way to spend a budget that was usually appropriated from TV spend.
Fast forward to today and it’s still the most prevalent format, despite considerable experimentation (autoplay, click to play, sound on, sound off, pre-roll, mid-roll, outstream, shoppable, social and vertical video… the list goes on).
Research my own company did in the US with over 300 brand advertisers and agencies found that 86% of marketers say they’re using pre-roll today, more than double the number using any alternative, with 84% saying they still expect to be using pre-roll in two years’ time.
Paradoxically, the same respondents also believe that the pre-roll experience sucks. Nearly half of marketers rate the pre-roll experience as poor or fair, and 80% say consumers simply don’t like pre-roll. They skip it because it is “unengaging” and “intrusive” and list “annoyed viewers” as the top challenge for digital video advertising.
Shorting the irritation factor
So, if pre-roll is here to stay (at least for a bit) how can we reduce the irritation factor? Consensus seems to be to reduce the time and make unskippable 15 and six second ads.
Today, most people are using 15-30 second ads but the six-second ad seems to be the format that most marketers have their eye on; 77% believe they’ll be using the format in two years’ time, up from the 54% who are using them now with 80% believing that they are either effective or very effective.
The six-second ad was effectively launched two years ago by Google, so-called bumpers are designed to reach people efficiently with quick-hit, catchy branding—basically, their message gets out in the time that it would typically take for someone to click the skip button of a longer ad.
They also fit well with many brands’ upper-funnel goals of ad recall and awareness, especially because they can’t be skipped and the message is seen and heard.
Indeed, over the past year the six-second format has become so widespread it has moved from digital video pre-roll into media like TV. In the US last year, Fox sold six-second ads during last year’s World Series, key NFL broadcasts and 2018’s Teen Choice Awards, AMC put a six-second spot at the top of each Walking Dead episode this season and Snapchat plans to start testing six-second unskippable video ads in some of its content.
Short but sweet?
So, if six seconds is the sweet spot for reducing consumer irritation, how easy is it to tell as story in that time? Although 60% of the marketers we surveyed believe the ideal length for digital video pre-roll is less than 10 seconds, almost the same percentage (56%) indicated that creative constraints are the biggest challenge to greater adoption of short video ads.
For creatives used to building a video campaign around 15-30 seconds, it can feel quite limiting but it’s entirely possible. Just as the six-word short story, which legend has it was made famous by Ernest Hemingway, “For sale, Baby shoes, Never worn” was able to engage and connect, so a video can create a connection in a condensed window.
Continued evolution
And adapt we must. The latest PwC Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook 2017-2021 report predicts online video advertising will continue double digit growth and overtake classifieds in 2019 to reach AU$2,227 million by 2021, so there is a lot at stake if consumers entirely tune out and press the skip button.
Whilst pre-roll looks likely to be the default for the time being, it’s inevitable that new formats will emerge. More than three-quarters of marketers in the survey agreed that the ad industry needs an alternative to pre-roll.
I expect to see native formats like outstream video having a bigger impact across campaigns and In-feed social ads will have their place. Other alternatives, such as in-image ads that leverage the storytelling of the six-second campaign, may also find themselves in the mainstream.
Whatever format prevails, it is going to be one that finds a way to engage consumers quickly and breaks their habit of clicking “skip” every time.
I’m looking forward to collectively erasing the skip button.
Jon Stubley is managing director of GumGum.
People will commit their attention if it’s relevant to them or has a clear benefit to them. We’ve given up on finding that story to tell in favour of the brand and product message we want to jam down their throats.
Don’t give up and do shitty advertising in shorter formats because the option is there. Give shorter formats a role and continue to strive for being interesting and relevant enough to command 15, 30 or 60 seconds of attention when you need to.
If they didn’t like your 15″ ad they’re not going to like your 6″ ad either.
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Agree with @Aim Higher but believe we can aim higher still. 6″ pre-rolls have their place but the clue is in Jon’s phrase “They skip it because it is “unengaging””. So make it engaging! And don’t constrict yourself to 15″, 30″ or 60″ either if your story is good enough for longer.
We’re currently running a 9 minute piece via TrueView and 50% of the viewers are watching to 100%. That’s what’s possible.
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“So, if pre-roll is here to stay (at least for a bit) how can we reduce the irritation factor? ”
Install an ad-blocker – that’s what the audience has done.
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Stop the fight? You have the temerity to make a claim that the entire industry should just give up and go home based on furthering your own agenda.
The idea of the 6 second ad is a self-fulfilling prophecy and another example of the shift towards spreadsheet marketing that is rife within our industry.
Why not optimise to 5 seconds? or 4? …or 1? On a long enough timeline, that is surely the only logical outcome.
Advertising has no right to exist. No one goes to bed at night with the regret that they didn’t see a great ad that day.
However, great stories (which can be expressed through advertising) will always find an audience.
Instead of a dogmatic belief in responding purely to what the data tell us (btw all data is fallible and as an industry, we’re pretty bad at reporting on it in a truly objective, scientific way), perhaps creating something truly memorable and distinct is the way to cut through the clutter, irrespective of it’s length.
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That’s right. That’s – that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 5-second Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh
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Agree w @AimHigher. Why we feel as an industry the need to make binary commentary about dropping one thing in favour of another is odd to me. audience attention is variable and what they’ll commit to your brand is reliant on so much… brand, message, category engagement, creative and context amongst others. Google and FB have hoodwinked us to believe in 6secs as the saviour for all… truth is that’s all a consumer will sit through to get to a piece of UGC or short form video. Would I watch a 15 or 30 to get access to a free stream of the World Cup, Love Island or Handmaids Tale… of course I would!
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Agree with the article. It doesn’t matter how good your own work is. There will always be a deluge of bad work right after it that makes your audience reach for the adblocker and leave it on forever. Limiting their potential for annoyance off the bat is the only way viewers might not bother to install one in the first place.
And six seconds is plenty. We don’t even have to ‘adapt’ that much; just dust off those short and sharp print skills. If we can do incredible work with just one image, we can do incredible work with 180 of them.
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Basically, online you can make any ad-length you like as it is non-linear.
The history of :60, :30, :15 is purely so that they ad up to a minute to fit in with the linear nature of TV where content and ads basically add up to 30 minute blocks to match the scheduling.
So I reckon for online … go for it and do your best. Just don’t expect it to fit in on TV. A 2:30 ad-break with :06 ads would consist of 25 ads which would be unbearable.
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No no and no. Ads have always been annoying. People have always turned them off and figured out ways of skipping them. But succumbing to six seconds and trying to make the best of it is willingly creating a Frankenstein’s monster from a legacy issue. By this logic we should go to ads that are as feasibly short before they potentially become annoying. The human brain unconsciously forms meaningful impressions in micro-seconds so beautifully crafted subliminal ads that encapsulate a brand, tell an evocative story and meaningfully connect with an audience must be the way forward then…
As for invoking print design skills to make better 6 second ads, apples and oranges in this content. Hell, why not just run a pretty slide with a slogan like an ad for the local Italian restaurant back in 1987? The answer’s in the medium.
Here’s an undoubtedly unoriginal unthought-through thought: In most instances have sponsorship ads at the start, then at appropriate places mid-clip have skippable 15s, 30s and lower thirds. Then, when people are viewing vids on autoplay, deliver non-skippable 15s and 30s. As an added bonus, advertisers, content providers and platforms would suddenly become critically interested in where placements ran and how it aligned with their brand if videos began with: ‘This clip is brought to you by…’
Now that’s sorted, back to watching people confusing dogs with towels.
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