In an official statement to Campaign, Google announced this week that they are ending 30-second unskippable ads on Youtube videos in 2018:
In an official statement, Google explained that its aim is to provide a better advertising experience for online users. “As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” said a Google spokesman.
Unskippable ads were a double-edged sword for YouTube and publishers. While they guaranteed that users would have to watch the whole ad before getting to see the content they wanted, the drop off rates on these videos were significantly higher than for normal videos. Publishers had to balance the higher revenue received for the ads with the worse reach/retention, plus the user experience was degraded. Of course, skippable ads have their own problems, too.
My prediction? We will see more of a shift towards unskippable 5- or 6-second ads that make their point extremely quickly. Folks like Geico seem to have already mastered this format.