YouTube To Start Selling Unskippable, Six-Second ‘Bumper’ Ads Next Month

YouTube has announced a new six-second unskippable ad format called Bumpers, which it says are ideally suited to the kinds of “snackable videos” succeeding across mobile devices today.

The ads will be sold through the AdWords auction on a CPM basis beginning in May, wrote Google’s video ads product manager Zach Lupei in a blog post. “We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads,” he said, “and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them.”

Google says that in early tests, Bumpers helped drive “recall, awareness and consideration.” Early testers included Atlantic Records, which used the format alongside longer TrueView ads to launch the second album of English band Rudimental

(see below). And Audi Germany cut up a longer TrueView ad to introduce the company’s new Q-series SUVs given that Bumpers “lend themselves well to serialized content,” says Lupei.

“When used in conjunction,” adds Fiona Byers, senior marketing manager of Atlantic Records/Warner Music Group, “TrueView plus Bumpers really work more effectively than either format on its own.”

Lupei teased that as consumption habits are changing — given that half of all 18-49 year olds turn to mobile devices first to watch videos today — more ad formats would arrive in the future to suit these evolving habits.