Getting annoyed with online looping advertisements? Todou and VivaKi (digital media operations of the worldwide Publicis Group) have jointly rolled out a new online video advertising format “AdSelector” in the China market – a placement that lets users select video ads for viewing prior to streaming content
While pre-roll advertising has become the standard and the most popular video ad format globally, AdSelector allows users to select their preferred video advertising before watching a program, hence giving users more choices.
“Consumers have an insatiable appetite for online video content, [but] they dislike the irrelevant disruption of pre-roll, and the industry was simply struggling to adapt the advertising model to keep pace with evolving consumer behavior,” said Tracey Scheppach, svp, innovation director, VivaKi.
The AdSelector format has been tested in the U.S. market and is applied by Hulu (http://www.hulu.com). Aside from Hulu, MSNBC.com and Yahoo.com in the U.S. market are said to launch AdSelector in the next few months
As an expanding initiative, Publicis is introducing the new format and collaborating with top media partners in selected markets to test and collect more case studies. Based on the prior research, the AdSelector format delivered click-through rates that were 106 percent higher than pre-roll ads. The online ad-recall scores were 290 percent higher than pre-rolls.
“We believe a pleasant branding experience involves deeper user engagement,” said Gary Wang, Tudou Founder and CEO. “We believe our younger audience likes to feel that they are more in control, and in fact they are.”
Top tier brands such as GE, Lancome, General Mills, Dettol and Veet joined the AdSelector roll-out on Tudou.com. All data will be collected and analyzed to determine Chinese user feedback to this specific new format. So far around 80% users who were exposed to AdSelector on Tudou responded positively to the experience.
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