Everyone watches videos on their phones. It’s something that video platforms have been trying to contend with for years, and on Tuesday, YouTube revealed a new ad format that is specifically suited for viewers on mobile devices.
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On the company’s AdWords blog on Monday, Project Manager Zach Lupei announced bumper ads — “a new six-second video format […] ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency, especially on mobile, where “snackable videos” perform well.” Being only six seconds long, they’re also unskippable.
It’s worth noting that these bumper ads wouldn’t replace longer commercials altogether, but rather would be used to complement them. In a recent campaign, Atlantic Records found that it could use short bumpers to highlight guests featured on an upcoming record, and then use a full TrueView ad to provide “the fuller story around the album and the band.” Used in conjunction, the two formats were even more effective than they would have been on their own.
“We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads – and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them,” wrote Lupei. Advertisers will be able to start using bumper ads in May.
Here’s a sample of a bumper ad you might see starting next month:
