A 15 or 30 second pre-roll is too much interference. Post-roll ads are highly ineffective. Here are my suggestions for making video advertising successful:
- Pay video producers a share of the advertising revenue in exchange for introducing the advertiser to their viewers. I met with Metacafe yesterday which is doing just that. Their Producer Rewards model is a great first step. Revver's model is more straightforward; they split revenue 50/50.
- Couple ads with relevant content; let the producer of the video choose and introduce the appropriate ad. Every video sharing site tries to play the part of matchmaker. Let producers have control, with certain restrictions to avoid the misuse. Ads should look something like:
"Video bandwidth provided by XYZ Advertiser"
Stay tuned after the video to hear more
about their really cool product.
If content producers are invested in the success of the ads, and have the power to choose which ads their audience sees, you have a winning formula for video advertising.
Disagree? Know of an existing model similar to my suggestion? Do share.
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