The Coalition for Better Ads (CBA) announced a new set of standards for video ads. The company that is responsible for improving the state of online advertisements have come up with new rules and regulations that every ad-maker has to follow. The new set of standards will be applicable from August 5, 2020.
Following the news, Google, who is one of the founding members of CBA, has also announced how it will implement the new set of rules. The new video ad standards will apply to all of Google’s advertising platforms. Google Chrome, and YouTube.
Neal Thurman, director of Coalition for Better Ads, said: “The Coalition for Better Ads is pleased to add this new Standard to our tools to help the online ad industry improve the experience for consumers.”
What can users expect?
Video ads might be an excellent way for companies to reach out to the audience and promote their products. However, these ads can frequently be intrusive. And for internet users, nothing is more annoying than intrusive video ads that make no sense.
So, starting August 5, Chrome will use its built-in ad-blocker to block every video ad that doesn’t stick to the new standards.
And as for the websites that run the ads, if you don’t review your site status in the Ad Experience Report, your ads might automatically get blocked by Chrome’s ad-blocker.
The decision was made after extensive research related to short-form video ads. The study involved almost 45,000 consumers. Eight countries representing 60% of global online advertising spending participated in CBA’s extensive research.
What are the Intrusive Video Ads?
The Coalition for Better Ads has come up with a Better Ads Standard for every short-form video ads (8 minutes or less). It is applicable for ads running on a desktop, mobile, and in-app environments to improve consumers’ online ad experience.
Three ad experiences fall under the Better Ads Standard for short-form video. The ads are mid-roll ads, pre-roll ads, and non-linear display ads.
Mid-roll ads are video ad experience that plays in the middle of a video. It comes in varieties and durations and interrupts a video mid-way while watching the video. Pre-roll ads are the ones that appear at the beginning of the videos users watch. It is longer than 31 seconds and can’t be skipped within the first 5 seconds.
And finally, there are non-linear ads. These are images or text ads that appear on top of a video. It either appears in the middle third (center) of the video player window or covers more than 20% of the video content.
All three ad experiences are deemed as annoying and extremely interruptive by consumers participating in the research. However, the new standards do not apply to videos that are longer than eight minutes.