Research participants have been telling us for a while that they prefer online ads they can skip.  That is, when they view video ads that run before their desired content, they much prefer those that give them an option to click to jump directly to the content rather than forcing them to watch the whole ad.  That’s no surprise.  The question has been whether offering skippable ads also makes business sense.  Recent research reported in the Journal of Advertising Research says it does.

Google conducted research that analyzed data from thousands of YouTube users: half viewed traditional video ads (the kind that force the viewer to watch in order to get to their desired content), while the other half viewed the same ads in skippable format.  They then analyzed the likelihood of viewers to subsequently search for terms related to the advertising content.

They found the skippable ads to be equally as effective as traditional ads, while reducing the negative impact of the ads (viewers of traditional ads tend to spend less time on the website than viewers of skippable ads).

The authors conclude:

“Online video advertising often is presented as a zero-sum game in which the interests of advertisers and users are inherently at odds. In the current study, the measurements of search activity before and after video advertisements on YouTube suggest that this need not be the case.

In fact, YouTube’s TrueView in-stream video advertisements appear to have succeeded in substantially reducing the negative user impacts of online advertising without sacrificing the value of such advertisements to advertisers. This is a substantial accomplishment.

Furthermore, these data imply that online video advertising really does work: viewing such advertisements affects later user behavior and causes users to pursue relevant search queries in the future.

Finally, giving users the choice to view (or not view) may actually increase this advertising effectiveness by engaging users in the advertising process. In this way, empowering users to choose the advertisements they watch online need not come at the cost of advertiser value but actually appears to serve the interests of advertisers and content owners and users.”

How can you create ads that appeal to your prospects and customers? Ask them!  Call us to discuss conducting research with your target market – tel: (818) 752-7210.

Sources: “Empowering Online Advertisements by Empowering Viewers with the Right to Choose: The Relative Effectiveness of Skippable Video Advertisements on YouTube,” Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2012; Bureau West research