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Media Perspectives - Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Real Dope On Pre-Roll
? by Jaffer Ali
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us
pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must
therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes
collide with a bit of reality against which they are
dashed to pieces. --Sigmund Freud
This article is likely to irritate a lot of people. Of
course that is not the goal, but an expected byproduct
nonetheless. Let me first begin by stating in absolute
terms that I wish I were wrong about what follows, because
my life would have been rendered easier.
Here is the conclusion and the rationale will follow:
Pre-roll video is a terrible DR and branding vehicle!
Before the proof, a simple question. Have you ever watched
video online? Of course you have. Now, do you like auto-
played commercials that precede the content you click on?
I asked 23 people and not one answered affirmatively.
Hardly scientific, but anecdotally interesting.
This is where the problem begins. Nobody wants more
advertising. At best it is tolerated. But in ever-
increasing numbers we are avoiding video commercials on
both TV and the Internet. We use DVRs to zip through them
on television, and simply click away from them on the
computer.
With pre-roll, the abandon rate is the online metric that
tells us how often people click away before the content
clip plays. Three years ago, a :30 pre-roll garnered a 26%
abandon rate. Logic dictated that a shorter pre-roll spot
would lessen the abandon rate, so :15 pre-roll spots
became the de rigueur option. These shorter pre-roll
interruptions suffered "only" an 8% abandon rate.
But that was then, and this is now. Today, the abandon rate
of the :15 pre-roll has more than tripled. The trend is
clear. More and more people are avoiding the ads. But for
the approximately 75% that are sticking around to view the
post-roll content, how effective is that fifteen second
spot?
There are two ways to measure the effectiveness of an
online ad. One is the click and the other is the sale. For
branding campaigns, the click is proof that the audience
has engaged the brand message, regardless of the audience.
But the sale is all that matters to a DR campaign.
How effective is a :15 pre-roll spot in generating a click?
Answer: not very. Click thru rates for pre-roll video ads
have declined to less than 1% (which coincides with the
precipitous decline in CTRs for their online display-ad
counterparts), with the result that the CTR metric is being
abandoned because no one, seller or buyer, can afford that
level of failure. Rather than solve the problem, the
industry would rather shoot the messenger.
Can a fifteen second spot be used for DR purposes? I have
a lot of personal experience in TV direct response,
including campaigns for Riverdance, Lord of the Dance,
Honeymooners Lost Episodes and Muhammad Ali to name just a
few. We've used :15 pre-rolls in more than fifty online DR
campaigns. The results? Utter futility. So futile that if
anyone tells me that it can be used for such purposes, I
will call them a liar, a fool, or both.
To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but
to imagine your facts is another. --John Burroughs
So who is touting the pre-roll as a great advertising
medium? Trade publications certainly are. Why? Because
the same parties utilizing pre-roll are subsidizing the
trades. The "conspiracy" is obvious. Those with an economic
interest are loath to see any reality that conflicts with
their purpose.
Perhaps you're questioning my company's own self-interest
in abandoning the pre-roll as a savior. Let me assure you
that as owners and operators of both a video portal and
a direct-response division, we would like nothing better
than a pre-roll application that we could champion. But
the facts about pre-roll conspired against us; our
objective assessments of pre-roll from a molecular level
compelled us to develop a different business model. Simply
put, this pre-roll dog won't hunt. In fact, the only way
it works is in comparison to its even more anemic display-
ad counterpart.
The weirdest part of the pre-roll saga is how the inter-
mediaries have been able to convince brands that this was
the road to effective, scalable reach. Two things are for
certain: these clever intermediaries obviously didn't use
their own money, and certainly didn?t use pre-roll to make
their point.
Jaffer Ali is CEO of the Vidsense Video Snack Network, the
only online network to deliver effective, scalable reach
for big brand advertisers. He also owns and operates
EVTV1, a large video portal that pre-dates YouTube, and
PulseTV, a highly successful e-commerce catalog.
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