Once upon a magical time, prior to 2009, you could stream videos on YouTube without having to sit through any pre-roll ads. Those simpler times have now passed , but it seems that people yearn to have them back. These pre-roll ads are popular with approximately no one, or to be more exact, with an apparent 6% of the internet-savvy population. According to research carried out by MetrixLab, the rest of the 94% skip them as soon as they can after the first five unskippable seconds.
This time though, it was a different story. Nail Communications, an advertising agency based in Providence, R.I., set out to create an unskippable pre-roll ad, and it looks like they were successful. Who would even think to click “Skip Ad” when a puppy’s life is on the line? They wanted to keep people watching past the first five seconds, a goal which they say should always be behind these kinds of ads if they want to have an actual impact. Every time someone watched that whole ad, Nail donated money to the ASPCA.
Even though they achieved what they wanted, the means they have used are not subtle in the least. Threatening the viewer not to skip the ad is one way of keeping people watching but perhaps there’s an alternative, one that doesn’t involve pretending to threaten a Labrador puppy. Even if it ends up earning the ASPCA a lot of money, can this really be called an effective ad? It’s kind of like saying your charity campaign was successful after you hold up a bank and donate the proceedings toward free vaccinations for children.
It can’t be denied though that this ad got people’s attention. The minute the guy hooked up the other end of the car battery to the “Skip Ad” button, I didn’t even think to do anything but sit through the whole thing. Saving a puppy definitely trumps saving time.
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