Campbell, Mattison Thompson, Grimm, and Robson (2017) use a large industry set of pre-roll ads, across countries and product categories, to test which ad characteristics make people skip.

In pre-roll, the ad plays in the exact space the viewer came to watch. Less complex affective characteristics increase skipping, because they leave cognitive resources free for irritation. Attention-getting characteristics also increase skipping, because they make the pre-roll easier to recognize as advertising.

Method

An empirical study of a large industry dataset of pre-roll ads from multiple countries and product categories. Pre-roll plays a brief forced segment, then offers a skip, in the same frame as the video the viewer intended to watch. The authors relate a broad set of ad characteristics to skipping.

Main findings

  • Thin affect leaves room to be annoyed. Less complex affective characteristics increase skipping by failing to engage cognitive resources, so irritation has room to register.
  • Attention-getting cues mark the ad as an ad. In pre-roll they raise the chance viewers recognize the content as advertising and skip.
  • The usual grab does not transfer. Attention-getting approaches built for a low-attention state are a poor fit for a format the viewer is already watching.

Why this is in the Darwin index

This is the skipping-drivers paper next to Pashkevich, Dorai-Raj, Kellar, and Zigmond (2012) on whether a skippable format still delivers value, and next to Frade, Oliveira, and Giraldi (2022) on where the eyes go when a skip control is on screen.

Source of record: doi:10.1080/00913367.2017.1334249.