In 2016 Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), IAB Europe and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), formed the Coalition for Better Ads to improve user experience with digital ads.
Their work is powered through research and from that they provide recommendations on how digital ads should be run and how to improve the digital ad experience. The coalition is made up of four main committees:
Standards and Research Committee
The Standards and Research Committee develops consumer-based, data-driven standards that participants in the advertising and media ecosystem could follow, aimed to improve the consumer advertising experience.
Communications and Awareness Committee
The Communications and Awareness Committee raises awareness among consumers and business about the Better Ads Standards and tools that are developed to enhance the consumer advertising experience.
Accountability Committee
The Accountability Committee established a program allowing for certification of compliance with the Better Ads Standards.
Technology Committee
The Technology Committee evaluates and develops principles to address the use of the Better Ads Standards by browsers and other technologies for assessment and implementation.
The Coalition for Better Ads has been researching the type of ads that people prefer online.
Google announced last week, changes they are making off the back of recent research, Better Ads Standards, that the coalition undertook. In that research, they found that ads that stopped their video viewing (or covered at least 50% of the video) were the least liked as well as mid-roll and pre-roll ads that can’t be skipped that are longer than six seconds.
As a result, Google Chrome will be banning three core ads that have been deemed as “disruptive” by the coalition over the coming months for any content less than eight minutes long, including;
- Long, non-skippable pre-roll ads or groups of ads longer than 31 seconds that appear before a video and that cannot be skipped within the first 5 seconds.
- Mid-roll ads of any duration that appear in the middle of a video, interrupting the user’s experience.
- Image or text ads that appear on top of a playing video and are in the middle of the video player window or cover more than 20% of the video content.
Image ads at the end of videos, small images on top of playing videos and six-second pre-roll ads were the least disruptive.
Whilst the coalition continues to conduct research and determine how ads should be run on the internet, what does this mean for advertisers?
All Response Media viewpoint
Although not surprising that these changes will be taking place, it is important that the balance between content and ads is a fair one, which is why the research has indicated eight minutes as the cut-off point. Thereafter, users are much more aware and understanding of the fact that mid-roll and longer pre-roll may run in the content.
YouTube already offers skippable ads and it is likely that Facebook will have to follow suit, because as it stands Facebook is guilty of having long (up to 15 seconds) mid-rolls in their content. From a measurement perspective, here at All Response Media, we generally prefer skippable ads as it validates them being watched and it has long been an issue that Facebook counts three-seconds as a “view”.
With the changes that the coalition are recommending, we expect to see changes in the way video is traded and measured which aligns itself to how All Response Media already approaches video.
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