YouTube finally unveiled its plans to use in-stream overlay ads on its video-sharing site. The semi-transparent ads, which appear on the bottom corner of their video player, begin to appear 15 seconds into a clip and last up to 10 seconds. Users can click on the ad to pull up a separate video trailer. Advertisers can use the system to target viewers by age, sex, geography, daypart, and even video genre.
Google will sell the InVideo ads at a rate starting at $20 per thousand impressions, initially only to partner video makers. Also, the ads will only come up when the videos are played on YouTube.com.
YouTube Is Stealing The Overlay Ad Unit Idea From VideoEgg
Not surprisingly, overlay video ad pioneer VideoEgg is already crying foul! A banner on VideoEgg Inc.’s home page says the following in big bold letters:
“Welcome YouTube, Seriously. We invented the video overlay ad about a year ago. We are delighted that the market is finally catching on to a vital new approach to video advertising.”
In the announcement, YouTube did not claim to invent the video overlay ad concept. They obviously just liked it enough to steal it from VideoEgg. I guess Google’s strategy is, if you can’t out-innovate your competitors, then steal from them.
