For anyone who has ever desperately searched for the “Skip ad” button on a YouTube video only to realise that you’re actually going to have to endure half a minute of this, we have some good news for you.
Google has officially announced that, beginning in 2018, they have made the decision to ditch their non-skippable 30-second advertisements.
The video platform has finally accepted that consumers are really not fans of the long compulsory pre-roll segments, especially on mobile devices, and are looking to more innovative ways of squeezing in commercials instead.
A spokesperson told Campaign: “We’re committed to providing a better ads experiences for users online.
“As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second un-skippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers.”
Instead, the video platform will transfer to “more engaging formats” such as the six-second un-skippable bumper option, a format they first debuted for smartphone and tablet users in April 2016.
This announcement comes as it is widely reported Facebook’s roadmap for the next twelve months is taking a much closer look at how long-form video will work on the platform.
Not to mention how video can be integrated it into the newsfeed so that it is native and does not require users to go elsewhere.
It seems YouTube needs to pull its socks up in 2017 or potentially be left playing catch up.