YouTube commericals

If you haven't heard by now, YouTube will begin inserting commercials this summer.  I think we all knew this was coming. You can't justify the price Google paid for YouTube with the current advertising model. Plain and simple, there is not enough money coming in.

The issue with what these inserts, however, is that there doesn't seem to be a plan to make the commercials relevant. I'm not sure what the average clip length is for a YouTube video but if I have to spend 15 seconds watching a commercial in order to see a 30 second video, I'll not be pleased with the advertisers and will not leave with a great perception of their brand, let alone purchase their product.

It's also puzzling that they're talking about 3 second inserts. You can hardly say a products name or flash a logo in that time.

You can guess that a lot of advertisers are going to be taking their 30-second spots and slicing and dicing them down. Not only will they not be relevant, they'll be totally in appropriate for the medium and lacking in creativity. Sure, it makes sense from a cost perspective to slice and dice but not to the customer. YouTube and similar sites are not just another advertising media channel. The rules are different.- Paul Herring