The dearth of quality video supply has had an upside. It has forced the video ad tech world to become more and more inventive with the how we serve video ads to consumers, particularly though decoupling video ads and video content (although we’d always advocate a mixed strategy where instream is also used whenever possible). Below are five of the more interesting ones to watch in 2016:
The Sliding Doors Format
This mobile format was created by Appetite Creative, and can run across mobile, tablet and desktop. The number of panels can be defined by the advertiser and ends with the option to watch a user-initiated video. While it’s more intrusive than most, the format could be used as an occasional page takeover type format, or for sites with exceptionally strong content (users to have the option to shut off the format completely via the X in the corner). It might also suit advertisers who are confident the audience they’re targeting want to see their content e.g. highly anticipated movies or video games. The Irish Independent is currently trialling the format, it could be the equivalent of a page takeover provided it’s frequency capped at one per user per day.
2. The Follower
This ad on CNN is one of the most innovative. The user clicks to play the video, then it continues to play in the sidebar once the user scrolls down the page. You can see how the video shrinks and moves into the sidebar pane and then follows the user down the page if they choose to read the article.
Here you can see the video when embedded over the article:
But as the user scrolls down the page, the video jumps over to the right of the page, so the video is always in view:
At the time of writing, you see the format in action here.
3.The Little Follower
Similarly, Adform have a format which is 100 percent viewable regardless of where the user goes on the page. The ad is an elegant small ad that appears at the side of the page and expands when the user hovers.
And this is what the unit looks like when the user hovers over it:
See a live demo here.
4. The In-text/InRead/InArticle
Teads have done a magnificent job of positioning themselves as the home of what they call the inRead format (also referred to as ‘outstream’, although the definition of that term has been stretched as new outstream formats such as the one above has been released). Over the last year or so we have various companies launch competing solutions (funnily enough a press release for another version of the format, this time from Zoomin.tv, an MCN, hit my inbox as I wrote this), so it’s going to be fascinating to see which gain the most traction in 2016, particularly on mobile.
5. Trueview for Shopping
Last month Google introduced their TrueView for shopping ads that connect videos with products, so users can buy the products they see in any given video. The company says that online home goods retailer Wayfair saw a 3X revenue increase per impression served when compared to previous campaigns, while beauty retailer Sephora saw an +80 percent lift in consideration and +54 percent lift in ad recall, and an average view time of nearly two minutes.
