What is a Bumper Ad?

In the realm of online marketing and video, change is constant. One such case in point is the bumper advertisement. What is a bumper ad? Also referred to as snackable content, it is a six-second video that is short and sweet but still grabs the viewer's attention, many times coming in a string of several short, related ads. Why such a short promo? There are several reasons, but the main factor is the bombardment of competing video content trying to reach people who are hit with thousands of messages a day from every direction.

How much media is consumed by the average person?

[caption id="attachment_4943" align="alignright" width="300"] geralt / Pixabay[/caption]

Thanks to multitasking (and our method of accounting for it, explained in a moment), US adults’ average daily time spent with major media will slightly exceed 12 hours this year, according to eMarketer’s latest report, “US Time Spent with Media: eMarketer’s Updated Estimates and Forecast for 2014-2019” (available only to eMarketer PRO subscribers). But while our reports early in the decade told a story of robust gains—with increases in digital usage more than compensating for declines in time spent with nondigital media—growth has been petering out. See the full post here:  US Adults Now Spend 12 Hours 7 Minutes a Day Consuming Media

Even though that sounds like a lot of time spent online, they are considering the fact that many people are on more than one device at the same time. For example, someone watching TV will many times be surfing the net on their smartphone, and both count separately.

Telling a Captivating Story

The days of the 30- and 60-second advertisements being forced on viewers are pretty much over. If an ad contains a good enough story to keep the attention of the spectator, then it might work. However, it is a fine line between keeping an onlooker's attention and raising brand awareness for your company. That is where the bumper ad comes in, but it isn't easy to create an effective ad experience in such as short time period. This video offers some tips, plus it is pretty entertaining to watch: So how do you make your brand unskippable? That is the million dollar question! According to Google Adwords, a bumper ad must be six seconds max and nonskippable to fit into that category.

How To Create A Bumper Ad

The temptation with a bumper ad is to try and pack everything in all at once. This can result in the message being lost because of over stimulation. Instead, these ads often work well in mini segments or in conjunction with a related TrueView ad campaign, which is a skippable format. [caption id="attachment_4944" align="alignright" width="300"] ColiN00B / Pixabay[/caption]

The trick with bumpers, of course, is to maximize your 6 seconds. It's natural to want to try and do a little bit of everything, to literally cut your 15- or 30-second spot and capture everything it once had in 6 seconds. But that's not how to succeed. Frankly, it's impossible, and you end up drowning your message in a sea of noise. Rather, success comes through creating a series of vignettes and stringing them together. Don't try to focus on three elements in 6 seconds. Instead, create three distinct ads that each focus on one element. In addition, voiceovers, music and emotion -- particularly comedy -- play particularly well in bumpers. When these things are combined, the message becomes clear. Short-form messaging has also allowed brands to take more chances and be more creative with longer-form Trueview content because the purpose each ad serves can be definitively divided: one for reach and awareness, the other for deep-level engagement, etc. Read more here:  The 6-Second Impact: Bumper Ads Explained

Popular social platforms like Snapchat, where a video can only be 10 seconds long, are part of the logic behind this push. Marketing to the younger generation is on every marketing agency's agenda. Even Facebook has recently announced their intent to experiment with shorter ads, coming at a time when they are planning to debut some original video programming. Breaking up a video campaign into shorter chunks that are interconnected is part of the six-second era of advertisement, and if the giants of the industry are on board, we all better be ready to morph into the six second era.      

What is a Bumper Ad? was originally seen on Steve Smith