You know the moment: You’ve just spent the last few minutes telling your friends how great — nay! — how utterly life-changing this video you watched last night and how they just have to watch it immediately. Your audience primed, you find it on YouTube, hit “Play”… and then everyone is forced to watch a 30-second ad that cannot be skipped. Buzz. Kill.
In a bit of good news, Google has decided to be cool and is killing off YouTube’s 30-second, non-skippable pre-roll ads (trying say that three times fast), Campaign was the first to report. Google says it wants to provide a better advertising experience for online users.
“As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” a Google spokesperson explained.
Don’t get your party pants on just yet, folks: YouTube will still allow 20-second, non-skippable pre-roll ads, as well “bumper” ads that are better suited for mobile, and play for six unskippable seconds.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist