Ads are a great way to monetize content, but in an attempt to balance the needs of both content creators and content consumers, sometimes no one wins.
Lately I’ve been seeing an increasing number of film trailer ads tacked onto the beginning of YouTube videos. Most of them feature the “You can skip this ad in 0:05″ button, which is a nice because if you’re not interested you don’t have to sit through an ad that isn’t relevant to you. But there’s a problem.
Can you spot the FAIL?
Spot it yet?
Here’s the problem. I’m forced to sit through 5 seconds of the ad before I can skip, but for the entirety of those 5 seconds all I see is the MPAA ratings card. By the end of the 5 seconds, I’m so bored that I click SKIP instinctively. Since there’s no information on the ratings card about the contents of the trailer (beyond what audience it is suited to), I get no value from being made to watch this for 5 seconds.
