Markets

Google Shouldn't Let Viewers Get Out of Watching Ads on YouTube

By Catharine Taylor

Updated on: November 12, 2009 / 4:50 PM EST / MoneyWatch

Sometimes, I become convinced that the online advertising and media business is on a suicide mission, hoping to take the online video market with it. Or maybe Google just wants to kill a model or two and watch its competition fall by the wayside. Why? During the same week that the online media world is crowing about the fact that online video ads are growing, particularly when they run before other video content, Google gets the bright idea to do a test on YouTube, in which some viewers will get a chance to skip past the ads that run before online video. (In industry parlance, this is known as a "pre-roll".) In so doing, it will only be reinforcing the idea that users should be able to consume content with no strings attached -- an idea that, as the newspaper industry can tell you -- is simply unsustainable.

All I can say is, "For the love of God, Google! Don't do it!"

Google claims it's doing this test to see what kinds of users skip ads, and that the data it produces might even lead to advertisers to create ads that people don't want to skip. I already know the answer to the question of what kinds of users skip ads: just about everyone, if it's technically possible. As for whether the data this test reveals will help advertisers create better ads, what a silly idea. Advertisers have never set out to create ads that are by and large, lousy. If they were capable, en masse, of doing something better, they would have a long time ago. As with other industries, it just so happens that advertising and marketing is beset with bureaucracy, fear and loathing that produces more mediocrity than it does greatness. No amount of data is going to change that.

I don't fear for Google when I fret about this test; as the king of search, it can, and does, treat YouTube as a test lab. Should this ad model cause any revenue loss at YouTube, it will be a mere flesh wound. Instead, I fret for Hulu, the broadcast TV business and all other more traditional enterprises that are starting to see real money in online video advertising. Teaching consumers that they don't always have to watch the pre-roll, which virtually every site which uses pre-roll makes mandatory these days, will only sour the prospects of organizations that truly need the revenue. Next thing you know, all of those Hulu devotees, who are already whining over the possibility they might have to pay to watch video when and where they want, will start to complain about actually having to watch an ad before seeing their favorite show. Imagine!

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