The latest idea of how to market to people online? Inserting ads into empty spaces of online videos. Keystream, a California-based company, launched the SmartAd November 10, which is “an SaaS platform that enables publishers and advertisers with falling ad revenues to start inserting advertisement overlays into Web videos right into its ‘empty spaces,’ meaning any area on the screen where the action isn’t taking place.” In other words, any wall, sky or other background in a video can be bought for ad space.
Nice footage of a romping deer in a field? Nice, that is, until he’s romping next to an ad in the grass, or under an ad in the blue sky. This is getting ridiculous people! I understand the need for ads in videos, because that has been until now, a largely untapped source of advertising venue, but I think these ads will interrupt and disgust the viewer more so than a pop-up ad or even one of those ads that slide in from the top or bottom of the screen. At least with those kinds, people know it’s an ad and they can click to get it off their screen.
SmartAds has been getting some negative publicity on the blogosphere, mainly because of its intrusiveness. An ad every two minutes? Well, Keystream CEO Schuyler Cullen commented on a TechCrunch blog that the “Web video publisher can control the frequency with which ads appear taking into consideration user demographic and geographic information and their monetization strategy. They also have control over the general location where ads can appear on the video, forbidding, for example placements in the center 9th.”
Keystream says that its SmartAds “offers dramatic improvement in user experience” and that the ads are “non-obstructive” and “increase audience engagement.” I don’t see how intrusive ads will increase my experience of a video. I don’t watch online videos now, thinking “something’s missing here…I need to see an ad!”
Cullen has a comment for this too: “the publishers who are deploying our platform have seen a big increase in user interactions (roll-overs and click-throughs) as compared to pre-rolls and banner overlay ads and no negative feedback. As an example, ITV, in the UK hasn’t received any complaint from viewers about our ads, whereas in the past they received a lot of complaints about pre-rolls and banner overlays.”
I must give Cullen kudos for staying in touch with what people are saying about his company’s product. A lot of CEOs would just hope it goes away. But still, I think these SmartAds are too intrusive for them to work. If I watch a video that gets stalled for an ad that I’m forced to watch, I either: close out the video and not watch the ad; get up and get a drink or something while the ad is playing; or go to another Web site until the ad is through. If I watch a video with a SmartAd, I’m going to think negatively of the advertiser and the SmartAd itself, which will probably be enough to close the video entirely. Wow – how effective!
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