I wish more advertisers would follow in google's footsteps, the full screen video ads are reminding me of the days leading up to the .com bubble burst.
The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube. Just give it up and try something else already - why would I want to import everything that sucks about television/radio advertising?
So the guy who converted YouTube to a TV channel coated Google and all the publishers a huge sum.
I think they are trying payment based schemes. But for people who prefer not to pay - what is there other than ads and freemium[1] ?
[1]that's usually exchanging user advertising versus free service - but Google doesn't need advertising.
Which annoy(ed) you most? The leading ad-video or the banner at the bottom?
For me it's the second by far, although I don't see how the leading ad-video can have any decent conversation rate. Even with the best possible contextual placement.
Is it safe to assume there just isn't a good way to make ads work on a site like YouTube? 'Good' meaning what you described for regular AdWords (+Facebook) ads (text and display): being reasonably interesting/properly timed and generating a decent conversation rate.
The problem with the lead-in video is worse than a TV commercial, IMHO. On TV you go to watch a program, and the ads are an annoyance but you wait for them to be over and then the program starts at a fixed time, if you're not watching DVR, eg I usually watch a news program in the evening. But on YouTube, you make a selection of the video you want to watch next, and then instead some craptastic advert appears first. I don't understand why advertisers think this is a good way to reach people; yes, you get their attention by appearing as a surprise, but now consumers associate the brand with concepts like interruption and unmet expectations, before they begin processing any of teh semantic content of the ad. I frequently don't even notice what the ad is for because after the initial annoyance, my attention is fixated on finding the Skip button and counting down the few seconds before I can click on it. Many ads haven't introduced any product or branding by the time I skip away, and those which did so have already generated a reflexive mutter of 'Fuck off, Brand_owner!'
Now that I mention this, just thinking about previous Youtube ad annoyances brings several specific brands to mind, brands which I would otherwise feel neutral about because I've never purchased any products from them. Instead they're now firmly coupled with swear words. Think about that if you're ever considering a video ad campaign; the people who click out early are probably not just disinterested, but may actively resent your brand and your campaign might result in a net loss of business.
For websites as well as videos, I believe if the main content is showed first without any distracting elements and then the ad is showed at the bottom of a page or at the end of a video, I would not mind the ad at all and it would increase the likelihood of paying attention to the ad, provided I reach the end of the content.
But you would expect they tried everything and the current ads are the ones that work best. Which is a bit disturbing (and the base for my earlier question).