YouTube have recently announced that they will be removing 30-second unskippable adverts, but not until 2018…
You are often offered with the option to skip an advert after 5-seconds prior, during or after a YouTube video. However, sometimes you’re unable to skip 30-second adverts, which is frustrating for the viewer but, seen as great by an advertiser.
The 30-second advert option was implemented into YouTube adverts, as it’s the standard TV advert length. However, people respond to adverts on phones and desktops differently to those played on TV. On digital devices, people’s attention spans are so short and can often get frustrated by lengthy adverts. But when it comes to TV adverts, people tend to be more relaxed and will just sit through the adverts, if not they will just change the channel whilst the adverts are playing and then head back to the channel they were on.
YouTube hopes that by reducing the advert lengths to 20 seconds or less, that it will encourage brands to be even more creative with their adverts. The change is also being applied as they know that people haven’t got the attention span for lengthy adverts. If you’re clever enough with your advert, you can potentially get your message across within just 10-seconds, and not bore off potential customers. Adverts on YouTube are generally better at driving sales, with a simple click on the advert, a potential customer will be directed to a landing page. If the advert is more engaging and creative, then they’ll be more likely to click-through.
A Google spokesperson said that they want to ‘focus on what works well for both user and advertiser.’ and believe that dropping the advert length will help to reach this goal.
Hotels.com did an amazing job of playing with the skip button, by running an advert that had a pretend skip button. This button altered the advert from people talking as normal to them going through the advert whilst skipping. Have a little look of the demonstration in the YouTube clip below.