We all know how to answer polling questions the way the person asking is hoping for, and so, if someone asks if you like to sit through pre-roll, it’s not as if you have to think
before answering. Unless you create or sell pre-roll advertising for a living.
So when I read stats about how much consumers hate to watch those 15 seconds or so before the video they are
there to see, I can’t think of anything to say except, “So?”
Did radio advertisers query listeners about ads on radio? Was there ever a time the ad-consuming public ever
said, in unison, “We love commercials!”? I don’t think so, and before you throw the Super Bowl at me, let’s acknowledge that’s a special occasion. (Eleven months out of
the year, if I asked, “Can I put a 5-foot tall, dead and messy tree in your living room?” you’d probably say no.)
But I think everybody knows commercials are here
to stay and that many of them can be engaging.
New Geico commercials have made the most out of the realization that online viewers are so uniquely bothered by pre-roll that
it’s become the established attitude. Its new “Unskippable” ad campaign brilliantly lampoons the presumed funk we’re all in over pre-roll ads.
The
best is a family dinner scene in which the wife-type tells hubby and kids, “Don’t thank me, thank the savings.” Once that awkward line is delivered, the frame freezes and a
voiceover intones, “You can’t skip this Geico ad because it’s already over. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more.” The ad seems to be over, in about five
seconds.
That’s it. Except, as you’ll see, the frame isn’t frozen at all. (I’m vague on the details from this point forward, for readers who haven’t
seen it. I'd hate to blow the joke.)
They’re very funny ads--all four of them, produced by the Martin Agency. If you haven’t seen them, you should.
They’ve gotten a ton of publicity
and free media all around--mine included--and the one I sketched above got 725,000 views in the first day it was out.
USA Today wrote, “Some folks can't skip fast enough past these
so-called 'pre-roll' ads — typically shown before the videos they actually want to see. Geico this week may have taken a giant step toward changing that.”
Altimeter
Group’s Rebecca Lieb told the paper, "This ad succeeds in calling pre-rolls out as a necessary evil. We all know pre-rolls aren't going away anytime soon. This spot functions as a pie in the
face."
In his rave Geico review, Econsultancy’s Christopher Ratcliff writes,
“Research from 2013 indicates that 94% of people skip pre-roll ads. There are many reasons why they’re so loathed, and frankly it’s a wonder that two years later they still
exist.” He concludes, “if pre-rolls were of a similar, highly entertaining quality as the Geico ads, maybe things would be different.”
Ratcliff’s best point
is that Geico has come up with a format for pre-roll that it can use as its own signature gimmick, over and over, but it does so, I’d say by comically overestimating all that presumed loathing
and necessary evilness talk. I’m not going to defend pre-roll, but my goodness, out in the real world--rather than the advertising world--it’s a gnat on the list of the world’s top
annoyances. The people most excited about the Geico pre-roll joke, I’d bet, are the people who foist all the other, more painful pre-rolls at us. And without their duller pre-roll approach, the
Geico ads would never work. So thank you.
pj@mediapost.com