Not Another Ad Unit!
Staying Creative in a World Where Ad Units Keep Getting Shorter and More Mobile
Traditional Story Telling and Emerging Platforms
Traditionally, we’ve told stories built for a passive environment, meaning people have to watch the ad all the way through. New ad units tend to be set in the mobile newsfeed or another opt-in environment. On one hand, it’s an exciting challenge. But making ads for this platform also fundamentally changes how we tell stories, which can feel restricting and unnatural.
In “passive environments,” like TV or forced pre-roll ads, we can focus on telling a full story, often with a build up, a reveal, and branding at the end. This arc is the most natural way to tell a story ; there’s a reason most films and novels are set up this way. It allows for a natural build up, and allows brands to produce something that feels like content rather than an ad.
Now with the new ad units popping up everyday that are “mobile friendly,” opt-in, and often sound-off, there’s pressure to tell stories differently. That’s where the “active” story arc comes in. It’s designed to draw in attention from the beginning so people will stick around for the end.
New ad units are popping up left and right on social platforms, “active” environments. Every new unit feels shorter and more mobile than the one before it.
Let’s take a peek at some of these updates and then we’ll go more in depth on the challenges and opportunities they present.
YouTube
YouTube recently announced that they’ll be moving away from :30 forced pre-roll, focusing their units on TrueView and Bumpers. While TrueView, YouTube ads that are skippable after 5 seconds, can be any length, we know that the majority of consumers are skipping the moment they can. It sounds abysmal to creative agencies, but it makes sense from a consumer standpoint. When you’re forced to watch those 5 seconds of an ad, it’s literally blocking content you came to YouTube to see. Skipping the ad doesn’t mean you hate it or find it uninteresting. It just means that when you really want to watch that SNL clip, you don’t care about finishing a cool ad. Given that even the best content will be skipped most of the time, advertisers are starting to realize they need to build their creative accordingly.
Now YouTube has launched Bumpers, which are 6-second forced pre-roll ads. 6 second is not enough time to tell a beautifully baked story; it’s barely enough time to get your brand in.
Facebook has been telling brands to optimize for mobile for a while now. And here at BBDO we’ve done extensive studies with Facebook on how best to do that. The benefits for brands are compelling and seems to justify the cost of an extra cut or bespoke creative.
Stories
It feels like every other week another platform is adding a “stories” feature. Snapchat first launched the feature in 2015. Instagram launched stories in August 2016 and has since been wildly successful, with 150 million daily users. Facebook announced they’re testing stories in Ireland. A couple weeks ago WhatsApp announced their own story feature, “Status,” and last week Facebook announced “Messenger Day,” Facebook Messenger’s version of stories. Only time will tell if stories continues to take off on all of these platforms. How many places will users actually want to post stories in a day? (I would’ve thought just one, but Instagram Stories proved me wrong, so we’ll have to wait and see). For now, stories are everywhere and users seem to be responsive.
Those are the new units, what’s the opportunity?
Building ad units around an active story telling environment actually opens opportunity for innovation. Some of BBOD’s most buzz-worthy campaigns have been built for active environments. Let’s take for example Bacardi’s Instant DJ on Instagram stories. The activation laddered up to Bacardi’s “We Are the Night” campaign, and got a lot of press. Not only was it an awesome creative activation, it drove awareness for the campaign, making the TV and Passive OLV work harder.
The active story arc is different and it shouldn’t replace the passive story arc. We just need to make sure our work is positioned to perform the best that it can given where it will be placed. We can leverage each story-telling device in the appropriate environments to make them to work together. Our clients then get a more affordable integrated campaign across multiple channels, which we know to be more effective.
As platforms continue to expand their ad units, we’re also going to be able to find more budget efficiencies in active environments. The rise of vertical video in particular opens opportunity for budget efficiencies. Snapchat required it, and no one else really did. It costs a lot of money to produce an ad that can only run on one platform, even when it’s just an adapt. With the addition of stories pretty much everywhere and Facebook’s expansion of vertical video, assets that can run as Snap Ads on Snapchat can now be repurposed on Facebook and Instagram as well.
When social ad placements are optimized and keep campaign messaging consistent, they make the rest of our work more effective. And while these ad units can be creatively frustrating at times, they also provide exciting opportunities to break through ad clutter.
