More sites employing auto-play video ads
Cory Bergman February 21st, 2007
I’m curious what everyone thinks about the increasing practice of automatically playing video with a pre-roll ad when you visit a media site’s home page. Visit ABC.com for an example, and ESPN.com has a different twist on it. As more sites sell out of traditional pre-roll inventory, there’s an increasing pressure to consider auto-playing ads on either home pages or section pages, which can drive up ad impressions astronomically overnight. Of course, there’s the annoyance factor which can frustrate and drive users away. And there’s the probability that advertisers won’t pay as high as a CPM in this environment because it wasn’t triggered by an attentive user (and what happens if a user mutes it, does the ad still count?) I’m certainly not advocating auto-play ads on news pages, but what about entertainment or weather or sports? Or will the user backlash ultimately outweigh the financial benefits?
Adds Ed in comments: “When we did our last round of user testing and focus groups, the #1 complaint was autostarting video and audio. The users said that they were afraid they’d get caught looking at websites during work.”
Adds SS in comments: “I’ve used auto-play before for both promotional use and ads. They work and drive traffic well to the promoted sections. After using them for 6 months plus saw no backlash from users. Numbers didn’t drop, the world didn’t end and no hate mail came pouring in. It’s a good idea, but be smart about it. Don’t put up loud annoying clips. Make it interesting and don’t just slap up any old commercial.”
17 Comments Add your own
1. Michael Chastain | February 21st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I’m against anything with sound that automatically plays on a web page. Unrequested sound/video on web pages is bad enough, but the problem is especially bad if you’re a big tabbed browsing user.
I frequently find myself going through a dozen or more tabs trying to find out which page is causing the annoyance. If you find you MUST have such a thing, use the technology I’ve seen on some sites so your content doesn’t play until the tab is active.
2. Doug | February 21st, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I hate anything that automatically plays the audio, like the Apple.com page when they started the current campaign.
3. SS | February 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I’ve used auto-play before for both promotional use and ads… They work and drive traffic well to the promoted sections and After using them for 6 months plus saw no backlash from users. Numbers didn’t drop, the world didn’t end and no hate mail came pouring in.
It’s a good idea, but be smart about it. Don’t put up loud annoying clips. Make it interesting and don’t just slap up any old commercial. Best case is to promote a section with an advertiser kicker marry the content and the sponser for things like weather, sports, entertainment, home improvement, money, etc… A fine line maybe, but when done right benifits all parties.
4. Evan Parker | February 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
What about the pages that show the page for a few seconds, and then switch to a full page ad? With multiple tabs, open one to ESPN, and one to Marketwatch, and hear your speakers explode.
Advertisers: stop coming up with ways to annoy your potential customer.
5. Ed | February 21st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
When we did our last round of user testing and focus groups, the #1 complaint was autostarting video and audio.
The users said that they were afraid they’d get caught looking at websites during work, and get fired.
So, after delivering this information to our sales department, and to the TV stations, one of the first things both did is deploy even more autostarting video - both ads and those useless alpha-channelled walk on flash movies.
I’ve said it before - they don’t care about the users. Heck, they still call them “viewers”.
6. Jeff Bailey | February 21st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Personally: I use Opera as my main browser with graphics turned off and plugins disabled. Not only does it make surfing for information faster, I don’t have those annoyances. And if I need to see them they are a quick toggle away.
Professionally: We used to post sweeps promos on the home page that automatically played, but we had enough complaints from our customers that we decided the ill will was not worth it. However, we still have one of those “alpha-channelled walk on flash movies,” but it’s on an internal section, not the home page.
7. Rob | February 21st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
People come to websites for content. Advertising should be integral to the site but not placed in such a way that it becomes a hindrance to the viewsers’ experience.
The short term gain financially just doesn’t balance against the long term loss of viewser visits and goodwill to the site.
8. invitedmedia | February 21st, 2007 at 2:23 pm
#5 Ed, irony makes for the funniest jokes.
9. Alyssa | February 21st, 2007 at 2:32 pm
The sound is the worst part- espscially when you share an office. It looks like you’re slacking off and bothers others around you who might be trying to work. Sure, I could turn my computer’s sound off, but that’s not a total solution. Not to mention that those ads, esp the full page ones, can seriously slow things down.
10. theTVaddict | February 21st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Personally I can’t stand the autoplay that abc.com uses. I also can’t stand the fact that before every clip, they force us to watch 1 or 2 ads. I’ve pretty muched stopped visiting abc.com as a result.
11. discreet_chaos | February 21st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
One of the local stations in my market (KRQE) autoplays their little webcast/newscast thingy. I don’t know that I’ve ever really watched it, but theirs is the station that I generally “watch” online because I can pick the stories and because they usually have the most video.
It does take the thing a little while to load, so it doesn’t really start immediately and because I experience a delay no matter my connection, I’m under the impression that they’re not at the top of the web.
So, if you were to ask me, I’d say that they’re probably wasting bandwidth because before the thing can actually start, I’ve surfed on to their next subject-specific page.
—
BTW: I thought I’d also mention that I like the way WRAL has done it. Their homepage video doesn’t autoplay, you have to actually click for it to start. And, what makes this doubly worth the mention is what happens when you click the “more videos”; Try it and you’ll see what I mean.
Oh and for the benefit of our friend; WRAL loads both via their call letters and as theraleighchannel, which is something we were told in a previous discussion.
12. thedetroitchannel | February 21st, 2007 at 9:05 pm
glad to know i still have a friend.
where do i send the check?
13. Joel Price | February 21st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
I can’t stand the autoplay on ESPN.com and NFL.com but it doesn’t stop me from visiting these site.
14. Nicholas | February 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 am
we just launched a new site that has an autoplay flash video with no sound (a logo animation) on the homepage…
we are really against autoplaying sound on home pages. it forces users to search for volume or mute controls instead of grokking your brand!
on internal pathways to different sections of a multimedia heavy site it can be more acceptable…
cory, your mailbox is full!
15. Cory | February 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Sorry, just fixed. Damn i’m swamped in email.
16. Don't like it, Can't quit it | February 23rd, 2007 at 7:31 am
This is a tough paradox. Autoplay drives so much revenue that it’s like crack - once you start using, it’s hard to turn it off. In our case, we saw visitors drop about 10 percent initially, but have made up for it over the last few months by boosting other content.
Unfortunately, it’s here to stay. At the end of the day, commercial websites are a business, and unless users completely boycott a page and traffic falls off the table (which we haven’t seen) revenue will rise from employing lucrative autoplay ads.
17. Greg G | April 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am
This will be even more problematic when ISP’s start metering your service, like Roadrunner is testing in Texas. With ever web page
forcing a mini movie download, your allotment will quickly run out.
I am using a firefox add-on to stop most of the auto playing and I envision that this type of tool will start seeing a lot of demand in the near future.
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