February 21, 2008

Google Expands Overlay Ad Options for YouTube Videos

Two approaches are now available for monetizing YouTube videos. Both consist of overlay ads that, I think, are the least intrusive form of video advertising available.

With overlay ads, you'll see a sponsorship message added to the bottom portion of the video screen. If you're interested in the ad, you click a button and the ad takes-up the entire video frame until you wish to go back to the video you're watching. This approach to video ads makes more sense to me than pre-roll ads that I thought were so annoying that I ended-up not watching many videos.

Beet.TV has a good write-up of these new ad options along with examples.

Banner Overlay Ads

Beet.TV just uploaded a new Twyla Tharp video:

When I played this video on YouTube, I took a screen shot of the banner ad overlay that appeared a few seconds after I started watching this clip. (Anybody have thoughts about the juxtaposition of this "Be in the Fight" ad with Twyla Tharp?) :

The overlay ad did not appear when I watched the embedded video on Great Dance.

Text Overlay Ads

Beet.TV also links to an example of Google context-sensitive text ads being displayed in the bottom portion of clips. I visited the video section of Bob Vila's how-to-site. I watched a clip about fixing faucets and relevant text ads appeared in the bottom of the screen. Here's a screen shot:

Additional write-ups about YouTube's expanded overlay ad offerings are on ReadWriteWeb and NeeTeeVee.

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