Well, this was destined to happen. Today we are discussing Youtube as a substitute to television. It has become a storehouse of entertainment. Movie trailers are being released on Youtube before anywhere else. Gone are the days when brands used to make ads keeping TV in mind where everything was expensive and had to be fit in 30 seconds. We are increasingly seeing ads being made to attract eyeballs from internet users. Youtube has also provided platform for many artists who have become overnight superstars, thanks to the viral nature of the media. Youtube  which was initially started as video version of an online dating website inspired by Hot or Not finally pivoted to a video social networking website which allows you to subscribe to channels, share, comment, like or dislike videos, create playlists for FREE.

Well, nothing is free in this world. In return of the videos that you watch on the website it makes you watch ads that at times you don’t particularly enjoy. Which are at times intrusive and annoying, but you don’t really have an option.

There are different type of ads that Youtube allows marketers to showcase their product and service to consumers. The ones that I am talking about here are

In stream video ads

These ads can come as a pre-roll just before the video starts or they come in between a video if you are watching a lengthy video. They can be both skippable and not skippable ads.

However, you cannot just SKIP ad. You need to breathe in and count to 5 before the SKIP button appears on the screen.

The longest 5 seconds sometimes

Some brands however realized that 5 seconds was all they needed to put their point across. These 5 seconds were enough for them to drive home point and in all probability they would have succeeded because for those 5 seconds the user is not looking anywhere else but waiting for the SKIP AD button to appear and if you manage to catch their attention for those 5 seconds they might end up watching a little more thus helping your youtube campaign.

5 brands that used the Youtube In stream skippable video ads smartly

1. Ford

FORD wanted to drive the message and awareness of road safety in South Africa. Check out how they did it very smartly in the video below

2. Volkswagen

This ad actually skips the ad for you. The smart thing that they did over here is that they took the TruView non-skippable in-stream ad and made a 5 second spot to align the communication being automatically changes gears and skips ad for you. Impressive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW2pzRfiHWs

3. Environmental Care Agency in Chile

The agency asks users to either “skip behavior” or “skip ad” in a campaign that urges users to stop wasting water.

Source

4. Audi R8 Launch Online

This is one of the best case studies for Youtube 5 second ad. The car’s best feature was it’s speed and it achieves 0 to 100 kmph in 3.5 seconds. The case study believes that R8 did not have budget to launch online which is obviously difficult to believe but adds the wow factor to the case study for it to win awards.

Check out how they launched the R8 online using the skip ad feature and apparently hardly paid anything for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABJYQhNW2f8

5. Horlicks

Indian marketers were not late in adapting the 5 second trick to drive their message. Horlicks, in their consumer research might have realized that it’s contemporaries or even itself takes time to mix with milk which is a bother for consumers. Therefore it came with a product innovation and positing that it mixes with milk in 5 seconds. Even before you can manage to skip the ad. Check out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQTG9vBmfCk[/youtube]

You can read about the in-stream Youtube ads in detail over here

Youtube In-stream True View Ads FAQ

How will I be charged?

Well, Youtube will charge you only when the user views your ad entirely, 100%. If your ad is of 30 seconds, minimum that the user has to see is 5 seconds after which he/she can skip and you wont be charged anything if the video gets skipped anytime between 5 to 29 seconds. You bid on a CPC basis and pay only for complete viewing.

This is the reason why marketers are trying to capture the target audience’s attention in the initial 5 seconds so that maximum exposure to their brands happen and people don’t just end up skipping it.

“Youtube TrueView only works for new ad campaigns or for campaigns which have a humor element in them and you don’t mind consuming the content more than once because it’s entertaining. For old campaigns that run on Youtube in-stream skippable version, we just need to be happy that the brand is being exposed and money is being spent only on those users who actually want to view the ad completely.” Says, Esha Arora, Senior Brand Manager, Jeevansathi.com.“

What are the reporting metrics?

The reporting metrics of your ad campaign would be

• Video Impressions
• Video Click Through
• Video Quartiles (First, Midpoint, Third, Complete)
• “Skip” button clicks (for skippable ads)
• Video Pauses

Source

When should I use skippable and non-skippable ads for my brand?

If you have a completely new message or a new campaign that you are going out with and want to reach out to as many viewers as possible on the internet it makes complete sense to push your message through non-skippable ads where you will be charged on a cost per thousand impressions basis (CPM). If you want to increase brand recall or strengthen your positioning and reach out to unique users you can use skippable ads where only people who have not heard of you will end up viewing your offering till the end and that’s how you will be charged.

All said and done, if you are thinking of doing a pre-roll Youtube Trueview campaign, make sure that you catch the user’s attention in first 5 seconds for it to be successful or else you will have a 3 minute campaign with users watching it just for 5 seconds to skip it eventually.