Facebook has revealed several updates to its advertising policies concerning videos. And the bad news is that everyone’s least favorite ads are coming.
Pre-roll ads are those ads that run before users get to watch the video they want to play. Lasting six seconds, they will only appear on original Watch tab videos users purposefully view and not in the News Feed. Facebook is embracing pre-rolls after years of shunning them as it tries to make payouts to video creators sustainable.
Facebook’s head of video Fidji Simo said that the company will not renew direct subsidies to Live News Feed video broadcasters. With $50 million in contracts for 140 publishers and celebrities, there are a lot of deals.
"We have been funding content for a while. We thought we’d launch a new type of format, and we tried to help publishers learn how to make that content work, said Simo.
So here Facebook has a new set of deals to pay upfront for Watch shows, and that includes some recurring Live shows. The social media encourages Live News Feed video broadcasters to use branded content sponsorships and mid-roll ads. But with the update, videos must now be at least three minutes long to qualify and have to put the ad break at least one minute in, as opposed to the old rules that required videos to be at least 90 seconds with the mid-roll at least 20 seconds in.
On the positive side, for video creators, Watch original video shows a consistent viewership.
Facebook is also displaying Shows in News Feed to users who follow the Show’s creator’s Page, even if they haven’t viewed or subscribed to the Show yet.
So what Facebook is doing here, is trying to balance the relationship between users, content publishers, advertisers and itself. The addition of pre-roll ads should delight publishers who want to ensure they get paid for their content even if users stop watching it after a minute.
It also gives advertisers more flexibility, as they could earn more from Facebook if Watch becomes more popular.
As for users, pre-roll ads will surely be annoying. Nobody wants them.
For years, Facebook executives have said they don’t want to run pre-roll ads because users don’t like them. But as long as the ads are purposefully made for the Watch tab, having to endure an ad should be pretty standard. Facebook is keeping re-rolls out of the News Feed because having to first view an ad there would ultimately ruin experience.
The biggest losers here are publishers. Those who took Facebook’s Live and on-demand News Feed video subsidies, and have built up big teams of staffers to produce the expensive content, are having a harder time in monetization.
Before, these publishers just had to make entertaining video, and Facebook will pay. However, the changes are forcing their videos to cram into the sponsored content.
This is the result of Facebook in having too much contents to show, despite having billions of users. Those contents are competing for viewership, and Facebook just can't handle too much.