The Coalition for Better Ads, a group of companies and international trade organizations that aims to improve consumers’ experience with online advertising, announced on February 5 that it has developed an international Better Ads Standard applicable to short-form videos. The goal of the Coalition’s research and development efforts is to identify the ad experiences that consumers least prefer and which are most likely to result in consumers installing ad blockers.
Based on research involving nearly 45,000 consumers in eight countries, the Coalition identified the following types of advertising as not compliant with the Better Ads Standards:
- Mid-roll ads
- Pre-roll ads or pods longer than 31 seconds that cannot be skipped in the first five seconds
- Nonlinear display ads that are in the middle third of a playing video or are larger than 20% of the video content
The new Better Ads Standard is applicable to videos with a duration of eight minutes or less that appear on mobile, desktop and in-app environments. It is not applicable to short-form videos on social media feeds or over-the-top services.
The new Better Ads Standard builds on previous standards released by the Coalition, first in 2017, which focused on North America and Europe, and later in January 2019, which applied globally.
Why it matters: Advertisers, agencies and publishers will face pressure from other industry stakeholders and consumers to avoid ads that fall below the Better Ads Standards. Accordingly, media planning efforts going forward should steer clear of the mid-roll ads, pre-roll ads and pods, and nonlinear display ads identified by the Coalition for Better Ads.
