YouTube reveals research on ad skipping
YouTube recently launched a new TrueView advertising proposition. It’s a scheme in which viewers can skip video ads after five seconds and the advertiser only pays when viewers choose to watch. Subsequent research into ad skipping has thrown up some interesting findings.
TrueView works in one of two ways:
- The viewer gets the option to choose one ad among many or to watch regular commercial breaks in between watching their intended film or the cute cat viral that will invariably follow.
- The ad plays for five seconds, and then the viewer gets the choice to skip or watch the ad.
In both scenarios, the advertiser only pays if 30 seconds or more of their virtual hording is viewed.
Research into the scheme has shown that while 30% of pre-roll ads were skipped (a surprisingly small amount) users who opted in to the ads were on average 75% more engaged (although we’re not quite sure how you measure engagement as a percentage). Bruce Daisley, sales director of YouTube and display at Google commented:
“What we have found is that people who watch the ad are so much more engaged and there is actually a value to this format.”
Although it must be noted that the results of this research are beneficial to those who carried it out, it’s an interesting acquiesce to the volume vs value debate. The proposition could serve to be a useful way of avoiding targeting the wrong audience, and only paying for an engaged community of opt-in potential supporters.
What do you think of the scheme? How does it compare to Facebook’s decision to pay people to watch ads?
Causecast launches a CSR transparency site
Corporate Social Responsibility has established itself as being more about a real investment in the way that consumers view a brand than the scarcely implemented throwaway recycling scheme that it once was. Brands are now recognising that consumers want a body shop ethos at a value price.
New start up, Causecast, pulls together the good work that different brands do in an act of transparency, so shoppers can see exactly how much (or how little) philanthropic work their chosen brands do. It has created Cause Integration Profiles in which brands upload the work that they are doing for a specific cause. It then produces a scorecard which rates the company’s employee volunteer programs, sustainability initiatives and corporate donation schemes.
For the sector, this could be a nod towards a growth in CSR, which, for charity, means more opportunities to collaborate with big brands and subsequently more money or volunteer time. Causecast doesn’t stop there in its work for charities, it allows charities to sign up and create a profile and potentially be matched to a brand looking to do some good:
It seems that nowadays any new start-up in the sector cannot be complete without a donation platform, and Causecast has made the effort to stay digitally fashionable with quite a decent offering of a free donation process with a customisable widget.
At the moment, the site is only available in the US, but the scheme has potential to open itself up overseas. How do you think it would fare in the UK?
Social networks Forgood
It was brought to my attention this week that a new social network for good – Forgood, had been released. I couldn’t help thinking of some of the offerings that had come before it, sites like Jumo that look at a widely popular model and try to apply it to something that might not be suitable.
It takes a pretty dedicated philanthropist to sign up and actively seek out anything that they can do to make the world better, without being prompted by a personal connection to a charity or a particularly good campaign, let alone spend time curating a profile and finding friends on a social networking site for that specific purpose. While I don’t doubt that some will, and that those people may be just as dedicated to other areas of your cause, it seems that a lot of start ups are relying on people being extremely pro-active (see our post about Givey 2 weeks ago). I’m of the opinion that it might be more useful to take the mountain to Mohammed, rather than trying to pry people away from the alpine networks they’re already deeply involved with.
What’s refreshing about Forgood though, is that it has an emphasis on making a user’s community a better place to be. Based in South Africa, the acts of kindness are more personal, and in area’s that users will be able to note change. Not only do you get teamed up with local causes and people, but after doing a certain amount of working and sharing, you also receive GIVE/GET points in which you choose a cause to give a real reward to, but also get a small token for yourself (like a DVD or gift vouchers). In this way I can see the site being a place where people want to spend time and be active in a personal way, rather than a lost philanthroper looking for random acts of kindness to perform.
Guess2Give
It’s the time of year where the grass is green and the weather is an absolute optimum temperature for everyone in your office to start doing charity challenges. Bike rides, runs and super fabulous charity walks (see below) are the talk of the workplace to an extent that in larger offices, it might be difficult to distinguish your challenge and your cause.
Guess2Give is a donation platform (yes another one) that adds a new twist to online events fundraising by offering a sweepstake function that allows people to bet on certain outcomes of the challenges (how long it will take, how many miles it will be etc). It costs £3 to make a guess and 50p from each guess goes into a prize fund, participants are then kept in touch via social networks and email. Mark Chandler, co-founder of Guess2Give, said:
I’m not sure whether this might take away from the charity element a little. Explaining the challenge, the merits of the charity AND the process of the sweepstake to a potential sponsor may confuse people rather than convince them to support. And would the amount of extra donations spurred on only by the lottery offset the amount of money lost to the site and to the lucky person who guessed correctly?
Perhaps the opportunity here, is for people to create an event where there would be no event before, for example, guessing the length of a best-man’s speech, the weight of a baby etc (anyone seen Rat Race?).
Third Sector Social Media Convention
This week the Third Sector’s Digital communication and social media convention was host to two days of must have knowledge for the third sector ‘covering all aspects of innovation, developments, leading practice and strategy in digital communications and social media [with] over 300 delegates, 50 speakers and 40 presentation choices and how to workshops.’
The #nfpsm Twitter stream was awash with questions, quips and carefully thought out 140 character nuggets of social media wisdom throughout Monday and Tuesday and seemed to leave everyone who attended inspired and enthusiastic.
Our own Rachel Beer presented the well received “Developing a cross channel campaign: the platforms, the systems and the integration with offline fundraising” with Centrepoint’s Senior Direct Marketing Office, Shormeh Omaboe. We also brought along the beautiful sofa for people to sit on for some respite and have an informal chat about digital.
Teri’s #walkL2B triumph
The insumountably brilliant Teri Doubtfire completed her mammoth 100k walk from London to Brighton this weekend! In aid of St Dunstan’s she struggled through the night on cola bottles and determination and completed the challenge in 29 hours (she’s currently sitting in the office with a bag of frozen peas on her knees). You can still sponsor her through her JustGiving page … or bring her some pies (but just a donation would probably be great).
Lucy J
Tags: advertising, beautiful bytes, conference, convention, CSR, Donation platform, JustGiving, social media, video, YouTube
