Last year at Sundance, YouTube unveiled a new ad format to brands: the unskippable, six second "bumper" ad. That's pretty impressive for taking up only six seconds of someone's day. Why Six Second Pre-Roll Ads Work Suffering through 15, 30, or even 60 second pre-roll ads prompted so many head shakes and back button clicks that eventually YouTube added a skip button to their ads in 2009. Fortunately, the six second pre-roll ad better engages viewers. When YouTube plays such a short ad for them, it's not as annoying as a full length ad. When you watch this ad, you're so amused that you forget Old Spice is trying to sell you deodorant. And viewers crave that. But, luckily for us, the Chipsmore's Cookie Guy saved the day. But it's actually a good thing because these people would never stay at their hotel in the first place. 9) Airbnb Family vacations are the best.
You technically can’t skip these ads. But you wouldn’t want to anyway.
Last year at Sundance, YouTube unveiled a new ad format to brands: the unskippable, six second “bumper” ad. To prove it was possible to cram a compelling story into such a short window, they recruited a handful of creative agencies to test drive the format — and the results were pretty convincing.
After that, huge brands like Under Armour and Anheuser-Busch adopted the new six second ad format to tell quick but gripping stories that actually stuck with audiences.
In fact, according to Google, 90% of bumper ad campaigns boosted global ad recall by an average of 30%. That’s pretty impressive for taking up only six seconds of someone’s day.
It might seem like you can’t accomplish much in that amount of time, but with a little creativity, brands can use it to forge an emotional connection with their audience and implant a vivid memory of those feelings in their minds.
Why Six Second Pre-Roll Ads Work
Suffering through 15, 30, or even 60 second pre-roll ads prompted so many head shakes and back button clicks that eventually YouTube added a skip button to their ads in 2009. In theory, though, an ad’s first five seconds are enough to hook viewers and hold their attention for the rest of its duration.
But we all know this rarely happens. Whenever a YouTube ad pops up and shields you from your favorite video, what do you usually do? You immediately glue your eyes to the skip button’s countdown clock and wait … until those lingering seconds finally slug by.
Fortunately, the six second pre-roll ad better engages viewers. When YouTube plays such a short ad for them, it’s not as annoying as a full length ad. And when brands craft these ads into fast, captivating stories, they can resonate well with audiences.
This lets YouTube sustain their ad business while helping brands create a more enjoyable and memorable user experience for its viewers.
So if you’re leveraging YouTube’s six second pre-roll ads right now, then hats off to you. If you’re not, here are 10 examples you can reference to inspire YouTube viewers faster than a Vine could in 2013.
10 Exceptional Examples of Six Second Pre-Roll Ads on YouTube
1) YouTube
To further promote their new ad format’s creative potential, YouTube challenged filmmakers and ad agencies to retell classic pieces of literature in just six seconds.
These are some of the most complex novels ever written. So creatives needed to convey each story’s core in a simple yet spellbinding way.
Rethink, a Canadian agency, did just that. Their rendition of Hamlet is clear and concise (we all know that everyone dies when modern day Claudius spams…
COMMENTS