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>> Just give it up and try something else already - why would I want to import everything that sucks about television/radio advertising?

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.

> The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube.

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.

For me the leading video. The bottom banner is also an annoying distractionbut at least it's relatively minor (compared to the lower-3rd monstrosities employed on entwork TV in particualr).

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.

I agree with you completely. I get that its hard to find a decent way for Google to monetize YouTube without being blocked and throwing ads in the users' faces. But when I have to watch a 30 second ad for a popular video that may only be a few minutes in length, I get pretty frustrated and just wait for the skip button without even taking in the ad. If most users are like this, which it seems so, then Google would be better off trying to come up with a different scheme because this isn't even effective advertising anymore.

I believe that running the ad after the end of a YouTube video might want to make me watch the ad. I've never skipped an ad that came after the end of a TED video, partly because the ads that come there are generally very well made and grip my attention right from the first second.

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.

That sounds like a much better idea. Views might be significantly less, but conversion rates might go up. You no longer annoy people and it is much more like a regular banner ad: it never blocks the main 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).

Hulu during the their beta days had the best solution in my opinion. They would show 5 second ads before your video starts. The ads were so short there was no reason to skip them or divert your attention to a different window to browse facebook.

As an advertiser and publisher I resisted ad blockers for a long time and YouTube ads drove me so crazy that I had to install them feel finally..

So the guy who converted YouTube to a TV channel coated Google and all the publishers a huge sum.