Dive Brief:
- Twitter is now offering 30-second and longer pre-roll video ads.
- The change is a significant increase from its previous six-second limit for pre-roll ads.
- The longer ad format has an immediate skippable option giving viewers control over whether they watch the ad or not, according to Digiday.
Dive Insight:
The new video ads are part of Twitter’s Amplify program as reported by Digiday and confirmed by Twitter's Adam Bain in a tweet.
Yes, we are testing skippable video ads https://t.co/d6eFy2NBrN
— adam bain (@adambain) January 22, 2016
The move makes life easier for advertisers in a way because 30 seconds is a more standardized timeframe for video content and something that brands are more likely to have ready to use in a Twitter video ad campaign.
Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo, a social video advertising platform, told Digiday, “Look at the the available online advertising inventory, there’s a lot more 15-second and 30-second spots available. This allows Twitter to scale up more quickly.”
And scaling up is something the micro-blogging platform needs to do. The California company has struggled to position itself among a growing competative social media landscape and its stock price has fallen to new lows in the past weeks. Just this weekend, CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed that four top-level executives were leaving the company, including its vp of global media, svp of engineering and svp of product.
Twitter’s Amplify program includes publisher partners such as Fox Sports, Vox, TechCrunch and BuzzFeed. Pre-roll video ad revenue that appear with Amplify content is split 30% to Twitter and 70% to the publisher.