The Lowdown On Everything YouTube Bumper Ads

Just under a year ago, YouTube Product Manager Zach Lupei announced the introduction of Bumper ads. These six-second videos are ads designed to be more suitable among smartphone and similar small-screen video watchers. The idea is as online videos get shorter, shouldn't advertisements too? But what can you as a business or advertiser do with seconds? The answer is a lot.

Using :06 to Complement and Cement Longer Ad Campaigns

In a recent interview, Youtube media marketing manager highlighted the big advantages of using bumper ads in tandem with longer video advertising. "Our :06 ads... were significant more effective at driving ad recall than our longer hero ads," she told Think with Google. "Bumper ads were particularly helpful at boosting perception when we used them to echo the :30 story."

While it might seem counterintuitive to advertise an ad, a wide variety of brands are seeing the beauty of using bumper ads to complement (and not replace) their existing ad formats. So that there is a YouTube campaign aspect centered upon a longer video and brief Bumper ads are utilized to reinforce that message and reach out to a greater number of viewers. Their short and unskippable nature makes them ideal for this purpose.

For example, take a look at the following ways some major brands are bringing bumper ads into their campaign strategies:

• Microsoft Xbox + Halo Wars 2.  Microsoft chose to advertise the release of their new Halo Wars game using humor. They created longer YouTube content under a campaign entitled, "Know Your Enemy". But, in the weeks leading up to the big launch day, the company also invested in a variety of short, yet humorous bumper ads that added to the longer form video advertising content.
• Atlantic Records.  Atlantic Records was one of the first to integrate bumper ads into a campaign with the release last year of Rudimental's We the Generation album. The album features some big-time collaborations with musicians Bobby Womack, Ed Sheeran and Lianne La Havas. So where there longer form video advertising focused on the overall album, Atlantic Records used bumper ads to introduce and highlight those collaborators.
• Le Mer.  When Estee Lauder Companies' Le Mer was marketing their new Skincolor de la Mer makeup suite, they chose a bumper ad campaign that highlighted each aspect of the new product line. From the line's foundation to its powders, each product got its own introduction bumper ad highlighting it to the viewer. But at the end of each six-second bumper ad, there is a shot of the whole product group to indicate the video was just a part of a whole and to lure the viewer to learn more.

The power of bumper ads is real. Are you interested in seeing what your brand can do with :06 ads? Contact us today at ADTACK to learn more about the unique benefits of bumper ads and how we can use them to create a more cohesive video advertising strategy on YouTube.