Display and VideoTechnology / October 13, 2016 / By Erin Martin
Storytelling with Video: Looking Outside of Pre-Roll
The video revolution continues. Fresh off the heels of AdWeek New York, the industry is abuzz with ways to make advertising great again.
Many industry leaders voiced the need to prioritize good storytelling, and only then figure out the best channels and formats to convey that story. Video remains at the heart of storytelling and pre-roll has been the dominant digital video ad format for years. Advertisers have loved it because of it’s similarity to TV and premium inventory placement.
Yet pre-roll has never been the ideal experience due to the sub-par user experience, especially on mobile. This is shown through recent stats from eMarketer, revealing that while the majority of people use ad blockers specifically to block pop-up ads, another 30% use to specifically block pre-roll ads. Studies show consumers are okay with watching advertisements in exchange for free content, but get disgruntled when they have to watch a :30 ad in exchange for a 1 minute video. An additional drawback is the limited inventory available to advertisers. Without premium reach advertisers have been unable to go all in on digital.
Enter outstream video advertising. Outstream solves for in-streams downfalls by providing a better user experience-a thumb-friendly, mobile-first ad format-while opening up premium video inventory. Outstream video advertising is defined by the IAB as anything that takes place outside of In-Stream Video content and includes Native Video, In-Feed Video, In-Article/Read Video, In-Banner Video, and Interstitial Video. Mixpo’s publisher partners have had success using in-banner and interstitial video ads as a way to expand video inventory for years now, and new outstream ad formats such as In-Content Video Reveal continue this trend.
Last month Mixpo surveyed advertisers and agencies to gauge their interest in Outstream Video Ads and found that 27% currently buy outstream ads, with another 18% planning on buying next year, with premium inventory being sited as the top benefit the format provides. While adoption isn’t yet widespread, 71% of advertisers and agencies see the adoption of outstream video ads increasing in the next year. Digital ad spend is projected to surpass TV this year, but with the continued hunger for video and a new crop of video ad formats popping up, we can expect to see the shift from TV ad spend to digital faster than expected, into formats outside of pre-roll.
The industry has found a better way to tell stories online, while solving for the premium inventory dilemma. And while pre-roll won’t be going anywhere for awhile, new mobile-first video ad formats, such as outstream, are providing a better user experience.
Learn more about Mixpo’s new video ad format, the In-Content Video Reveal.