In a continuing trend of new/updated video ad products, Tumblr announced that starting today, it will add auto-play, looping video ads to users' dashboards. The new video product will support Vine and Instagram videos so that advertisers can leverage existing videos originally crafted for other platforms. While advertisers already had the ability to run video ads on Tumblr, the new enhanced compatibility with Vine & Instagram as well as the new auto-play feature is a big improvement.
Since the ads auto-play, advertisers will only be charged after the ad has been viewed for two seconds and advertisers won't be charged for any looping, sharing or re-blogging. While this seems reasonable, two seconds is not a lot of time for a user to close out or pause a video. I believe that advertisers will incur increased costs with these videos while they may not actually see increased real impressions. I am curious to see beyond larger advertisers, which companies are willing to invest in what seems to be a high-cost ad platform.
The enhanced video platform will also be available to users as a new video feature. This is likely in a strategic effort by Tumblr to align closer to YouTube. While Tumblr is still seen as more of a blogging site, the potential for videos is huge and taking share away from YouTube could be significant.
Overall, the new video feature is enticing but has some potential downfalls including:
Since the ads auto-play, advertisers will only be charged after the ad has been viewed for two seconds and advertisers won't be charged for any looping, sharing or re-blogging. While this seems reasonable, two seconds is not a lot of time for a user to close out or pause a video. I believe that advertisers will incur increased costs with these videos while they may not actually see increased real impressions. I am curious to see beyond larger advertisers, which companies are willing to invest in what seems to be a high-cost ad platform.
The enhanced video platform will also be available to users as a new video feature. This is likely in a strategic effort by Tumblr to align closer to YouTube. While Tumblr is still seen as more of a blogging site, the potential for videos is huge and taking share away from YouTube could be significant.
Overall, the new video feature is enticing but has some potential downfalls including:
- Potential for large incurred costs with minimal audience
- Users associating the new feature only with ads and not using it for their own sites
- Confusion and loss of the user base in re-positioning Tumblr as more of a video platform
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