When Google bought YouTube, the second question people asked (after “what about the copyright nightmare?) was about how Google planned to introduce advertising into a pure video vacuum. YouTubers have never been keen on being sold anything, not even Paris Hilton.
In case you forgot, back when Paris Hilton launched her own special YouTube channel to promote her silly little song, purist YouTubers chimed in with their fears that the site would become too commercial.
Well, it’s too late for that now. It’s a marketer’s world these days, whether you’re selling hotel rooms or politics. But the burning debate surrounding video ads has been over whether pre-roll, mid-roll, or post roll ads were best.
Advertisers like pre-roll ads the best, but they can push the viewer to push the “Stop” button. People rightly assume viewers won’t stick around for post-roll. Mid-roll ads operate on the same premise as TV and radio ads – hook the viewer, make them wait a few seconds, and then get back to the content.
Google and YouTube know their touchy demographic, though. They won’t tolerate any in-video ads for long, if at all. This must be why they’re falling back on old standards: banners and pop-ups.
Yes, pop-ups.
If you have you’re Firefox browser tuned right, you won’t be able to see what Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser is pointing to. So use Internet Explorer or check out Plesser’s Dennis Kucinich video screen shot of the Best Western pop-up ad.
The banner ads seem more contextual. Click to view a Kucinich video and you may see a banner ad for YouTube’s latest baby, CitizenTube.
Though it seems backwards at first for such a Web 2.0 marketplace, it makes a lot of sense to do it this way. YouTubers just won’t tolerate their pure user-generated haven being interrupted constantly by in-vid advertisements.
The pop-ups may get annoying though. It will be interesting to see how the YouTube crowd responds.
