YouTube to Skip 30-Seconds Unskippable Ads

In a move that could be bad news for the ad world but will be great news for fans of insipid teen bloggers and snake videos, YouTube are to stop showing 30-second unskippable ads before their content from 2018.

In an official statement, a Google spokesperson said that the video site would ‘focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers.’ This includes 20-second unskippable spots, as well as ‘bumper ads’, 6 second unskippables designed for tablet and smartphone users.

This news comes as a number of brands have recently created ads playing on Youtube viewers’ relationship with the ads they are forced to sit through before watching a tween talk about what’s in her handbag or whatever it is kids are doing these days.

Most famously, GEICO’s Unskippable series had great success with this idea. In the first six seconds (the only time a brand can guarantee engagement with a skip-happy millennial), a scene would play out, before a voiceover saying ‘you can’t skip this GEICO ad, because it’s already over’. The ad would then continue, with the characters frozen in place, but life carrying on around them as normal.

No doubt inspired by these ads, Hula Hoops’ new ad campaign will also make light of the option to skip an ad. As reported by shots earlier today, the brand’s YouTube ad will feature a woman trying to skip, but unable to do so because she has the potato ring snack on her fingers.