Yesterday we talked about two approaches to text advertising on video websites that are being developed and/or implemented.  One approach puts targeted text advertisements inside the video viewer.  The second one scans the content of the video and displays targeted ads in the space around the video viewer.  Both of these approaches are attempts to find a suitable replacement for pre-roll video ads that consumers just seem to hate.

Ian Schafer, writing for ClickZ, has written an excellent look at pre-roll advertisements and suggested 4 ways to save the pre-roll before it's too late.

Schafer supplies some data from a Wired Magazine poll showing that only 14% of respondents said they'd tolerate pre-roll advertisements.  And as he goes on to point out, it's hard to blame them.  Commercials in front of commercial video is one thing.  But sticking ads in front of consumer generated media just doesn't seem right.  It's interruptive and you usually end up seeing the same advertisement over and over again.

In order to save the pre-roll advertisement from a quick death at the hands of consumer mobs, Schafer makes these 4 suggestions:

1. Better Ads:  People love good commercials.  Think about it.  Have you ever went to a video sharing website trying to find a funny or engaging commercial that you'd seen on television?  I know I have.
2. Shorter Ads:  30 seconds is just too long for pre-roll online video ads.  In many cases, the content itself isn't much longer than that.  Schafer suggests 10 seconds as the ideal length of a pre-roll ad.
3. Relevant Ads:  Ads need to be made more relevant.  If you're interested in a video on building a fort, why would you want to watch an ad for a new IT server?  Scanning technology and analytics could help deliver dynamic pre-roll advertisements that would be more targeted to the content of the video.
4. Fewer Ads:  Schafer suggests limiting the number of times pre-roll ads will run during a user's visit.  Instead of showing ads before every video, develop a system that spaces them out… maybe 1 every 5 minutes… or 1 every 5th video.

I love the way Schafer ends his article.  He basically says that if a decent, memorable message can't be delivered in 10 seconds it might be time to come up with a new message.