YouTube To Tout 6-Second ‘Bumper’ Ad Format At Sundance Film Festival Activation

YouTube has big plans for this year’s Sundance Film Festival, kicking off today in Park City, Utah. In addition to the premiere of the hotly-anticipated YouTube Red documentary This Is Everything, about popular transgender creator Gigi Gorgeous, YouTube is also partnering with a handful of ad agencies and filmmakers to pitch its six-second Bumper ad format to prospective marketers.

YouTube has created an activation at Sundance that will showcase 10 six-second films — which is precisely the length of the unskippable Bumper ads that the video giant rolled out last April. The films will be helmed by up-and-coming directors as well as five ad agencies, AdWeek reports, including Droga5, Mother, Leo Burnett, BBDO, and TBWA.

And at its Sundance

hub, the YouTube House, the streaming giant will host a slew of bold-faced brands to view these six-second films at an invite-only event on Saturday evening — including execs from Samsung, NBC, Amazon, Visa, Hulu, Gap, Sony, Microsoft, and more. The purpose of the event, YouTube says, is to give marketers inspiration about how to develop novel storytelling structures in a fast-paced, mobile landscape.

“A cross-screen world offers brands new ways to connect with people across every moment of their day,” Tara Walpert Levy, YouTube’s VP of agency sales, told AdWeek. “To do so effectively, however, brands must engage in non-traditional ways of storytelling to match the non-traditional consumer behavior.”