AdGrinder

When talking to people about online video advertising, we often need to define the terms of pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll, overlay, et. al. This is simply an education process, and is to be expected (especially when talking to those who are completely unfamiliar with online video). Often the discussion leads to “what’s the difference?”

If you’re unaware, it’s fairly basic. Pre-roll advertising consists of a video ad that displays before the video content a viewer has requested to see. Post-roll advertising displays after. Simple, huh?

Yet, for an online video advertiser, the difference is huge. In a nutshell, here’s why:

• Pre-roll advertising is for branding efforts
• Post-roll advertising is for marketing efforts

The reasoning behind the thought above is that a viewer has come to see specific content, say a video from I Make Things. So, if an ad displays before the episode, a viewer is unlikely to take action, i.e. click, on the ad (since he came to see the episode of I Make Things, not the ad). The opposite is the case for ads that display after the episode. Since the viewer has seen what he wanted, he is now ready to do something else…maybe even want to learn more about a product or service, or GASP!, buy something. Fairly logical when you think about it.

From an industry perspective, pre-rolls receive a higher clickthrough rate (CTR) [the action of a viewer clicking on an ad]. However, we believe something’s being overlooked here: viewers are “trained” to click on a video to start or stop it. Therefore, we believe the CTR on pre-rolls is inaccurate because viewers are clicking on an ad because they are trying to stop the video because it’s not what they wanted. We have actually observed this behavior.

What do you think?