What is Pre-roll Advertising?
WHY PRE-ROLL ADS ROCK!
You are on the internet reading this right now, so chances are you have viewed a pre-roll ad, probably within the last fifteen minutes. Pre-roll ads aren’t just for YouTube. Almost all social media has embraced the idea of video advertising. With multiple platforms to purchase space, it can seem like an overwhelming task and that’s before you even create the content. Production houses can create great video content, but often lack the understanding of digital marketing to implement the video in a successful campaign. At Dallas Riffle Media we have a whole department dedicated to creating great photo and video content that works in tandem with our digital advertising experts to make sure the right people see it. We create engaging pre-roll campaigns and make it easy for you and your business to keep it all organized.
Video pre-roll has surpassed banner ads, email marketing, T.V., and radio in engagement. Typically, pre-roll ads will start at the top of the video marketing funnel which you can read about here. These types of ads are great for raising awareness of your brand and getting people to click over to your website. Great pre-roll ads get right to the point, you will only have around 5 to 10 seconds to get your message across. On sites like Facebook and Instagram, the audio for the ad is automatically set to be muted so viewers must be able to tell exactly what’s going on without any sound.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD PRE-ROLL AD?
With all these restrictions, you might be asking – what makes good pre-roll? Simple single shot compositions with unpretentious text work extremely well. It’s very hard to make a full pitch within the allotted time and most people will be put off by an overly aggressive sales pitch before their cat videos. Data shows that the most engaging videos are those that have a humorous tone or appeal to our sentimental side. Showing empathy with your viewer is key to success in the short time you have. Examples of companies that embraced this thought process are the award-winning Geico un-skippable commercials. Geico communicated a simple message while poking fun at itself in a lighthearted way. Another brand that really stood out for their pre-roll is Air BNB. Their message was simple, when you leave home for vacation bring home with you. With six seconds they showed a family spending quality time together in a great home environment before the big reveal they are actually on vacation and not at their house. They communicated what they do and what they stand for within 15 seconds, which makes for ideal pre-roll ads.
CASE STUDY: HIGH VOLTAGE KARTING
The final reason you should be using Pre-roll is that it has a huge reach, spanning 80 different languages and reaching all age demographics. Since pre-roll is integrated into social media it means we can get extremely granular with our targeting, making sure that the right person, in the right place, at the right time is able to see your ad. Unlike end-roll or mid-roll, viewers are much more forgiving to pre-roll, as they have become conditioned to expect it on most videos. Pre-roll is a great way for a business to create brand awareness and dip their feet in video production without breaking that bank with full-scale video production and costly broadcast time.
DRM had great success with a pre-roll campaign for one of our clients, High Voltage Karting. They wanted to promote a large national event they were hosting, in which people dress up in the costumes of their favorite characters, race and compete for prizes. We created a 30-second pre-roll detailing the times, pricing and prizes – all centered on the theme of the race. We saw a huge increase in traffic to the landing page/event sign-up page and the event sold more tickets than any of the other North American go-karting complex involved in the event.
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