Twitch Launches Unblockable Video Ads

What Happened
Popular live-streaming site Twitch is launching a new video ad product that aims to circumvent ad-blocking software. Taking a page out of Facebook’s playbook, Twitch is now making its video ads indistinguishable from the site’s regular content so as to bypass detection by ad-blockers. The Amazon-owned site acknowledges in a blog post that it is “well aware that many dedicated Twitch viewers” use ad blockers but insists its platform will stay “agnostic” toward ad-blocking.

What Brands Should Do
This new ad product highlights the ongoing push-and-pull between consumers’ increasing avoidance of ads and digital platforms’ need for monetization. While this initiative should boost the viewability of Twitch’s video ads, brands looking to reach the young Millennial audience on Twitch may also consider native advertising such as the live, in-stream branded content that Carl’s Jr. tried with Vice Media.

For more information on how brands should leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer eyeballs, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

Source: The Verge