Search »

NBC U Limits Pre-roll Ads for Short Clips to :15

NBC U has announced that for short-form clips online - those that run two to five minutes in length - it will limit pre-roll advertising to 15 seconds.

Beginning in July, a single 15-second pre-roll spot will run with each short-form clip, writes MediaPost. Currently, there are a variety of different spots that run before the short clips, a third of them being traditional 30-second spots. That, says Peter Naylor, senior vice president digital media sales, NBC U, is too long for clips such as recaps of prime time shows or comedy bits from Tonight show host Jay Leno.
Thirty second pre-roll ads will continue to be used for long-form programming such as prime time shows. Naylor made the announcement during the IAB conference yesterday (Monday).

Networks have hesitated to pare down the amount of time given over to advertising because they haven’t wanted to ask advertisers to create brand new ads for the internet. It has been easier to allow them to run the same spot they run on traditional TV. While that attitude makes it easier for advertisers, it may be doing them a disservice; often, television creative does not translate particularly well to the web. It may make more sense for advertisers to spend the extra money to create ads geared specifically toward web audiences.

NBC U’s decision may be the first step toward making that happen.

NBCU has established relationships with four rich media ad companies to enhance ad interactivity online, writes ClickZ. Viewpoint’s Unicast online ad subsidiary, for example, will provide in-page rich media functions such as user-initiated video showcases in ads that run adjacent to the clip. Other relationships are with Eyewonder, PointRoll and Eyeblaster.

Yesterday, Brightcove announced that it will sell in-stream ads through video ad network Tremor. It, too, will only accept ads that are :15 or shorter.