A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the report, but a person familiar with the matter told Marketing Land that the company is expected to limit the pre-roll ads to Facebook’s new video hub, Watch, and not attach them to videos viewed in the traditional News Feed. Facebook’s adoption of pre-roll advertising may be something of a shock given its executives’ past comments on the format. But the context of those comments is important. That was in July 2016, when Facebook’s only video experience was in the News Feed. Instead of pre-empting videos with pre-roll ads — which would likely result in people watching “a lot less of the organic videos that were posted,” Zuckerberg said — Facebook would interrupt those videos with mid-roll ads, or “ad breaks.” That way, a video could pique a person’s interest first, and then Facebook and the video’s creator could capitalize on that interest by inserting an ad break after at least 20 seconds. That ad load issue is expected to slow the company’s ad revenue growth, and Facebook’s ad breaks have only complicated matters. By making people view an ad before they can watch a video, Facebook could recoup ad impressions and revenue. And it seems that soon that will also be the case on Facebook, though only within Watch. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch.
Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s long-held stance against pre-empting videos with advertising, Facebook plans to test out pre-roll ads, Ad Age reported on Friday.
A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the report, but a person familiar with the matter told Marketing Land that the company is expected to limit the pre-roll ads to Facebook’s new video hub, Watch, and not attach them to videos viewed in the traditional News Feed.
Facebook’s adoption of pre-roll advertising may be something of a shock given its executives’ past comments on the format. But the context of those comments is important. “We don’t think it would be a good experience in news feed,” said Zuckerberg during the company’s Q2 2016 earnings call. That was in July 2016, when Facebook’s only video experience was in the News Feed. The company had not yet rolled out apps for connected TVs or unveiled its dedicated video hub for TV-style shows, Watch.
But Facebook didn’t want the fact that videos would be watched within the feed to curtail its ability to make money from those videos. So it compromised. Instead of pre-empting videos with pre-roll ads — which would likely result in people watching “a lot less of the organic videos that were posted,” Zuckerberg said — Facebook would interrupt those videos with mid-roll ads, or “ad breaks.” That way, a video could pique a person’s interest first, and then Facebook and the video’s creator could capitalize on that interest by inserting an ad break after at least 20 seconds.
However, Facebook’s ad breaks have not proven to be so profitable. They have generated “pretty…
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