What Happened
YouTube introduced a new ad unit today as it aims to improve the effectiveness of its mobile video ads. Aptly named Bumper ads, this new ad product is an unskippable pre-roll ad with a capped length of six seconds. YouTube will start rolling it out to advertisers through Google’s AdWords in the coming weeks. This new ad unit will appear before YouTube videos consumed on mobile devices only. In related news, YouTube also updated its iOS and Android apps today to offer users bigger thumbnail previews and improved recommendations powered by machine learning.
What Brands Need To Do
At a time where consumer attention spans are becoming shorter than ever, it is important for brand advertisers to engage viewers in an efficient, to-the-point manner. This new ad product from YouTube offers brands a chance to prune away the unnecessary details and distill their messages to capture viewer attention more effectively. Twitter’s social video platform Vine also enforces a six-second limit on its videos, and brands can certainly learn a thing or two from the way popular Vine creators construct fun, engaging content within six seconds. Brands may also deploy this new ad format as a complement to their existing video ads, devising a YouTube campaign centered on a standard-length video and using the brief Bumper ads to reach more viewers.
Source: AdWeek