Study: Users Don’t Want Ads on UGC
A new study from Ipsos MediaCT reveals that viewers aren’t too keen on the notion of ads in UGC video — even if it’s free. They don’t mind ads in long-form content, and are even tolerant of them in short content like music videos and news clips. But with the majority of digital video consumers against them, this anti-ad sentiment is another blow to anyone hoping to make money off of UGC vids.
The prospect of UGC advertising video has already come under fire lately. The Diffusion Group recently found that UGC video will only account for 4 percent of online video revenue for the next five years. That same study predicted that CPMs for UGC vids would grow at a paltry rate compared with professional content.
This doesn’t bode well for UGC haven YouTube, which is only monetizing 3 percent of its video library and is considering reversing its stand against pre-roll advertising to generate revenue.
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I would love to know who is surprised by this. UGC by its nature is short-form content that people consume quickly. Ads have no place in UGC.
Kieran Hawe on July 24th, 2008 at 4:47 pm - Permalink
Some of this, as with any survey, is in how you phrase the question.
Replace “amateur/home made clips” with “sketch comedy videos”.
Is it as reasonable to expect ads in well-produced, entertaining, user-created sketch comedy videos as in music videos?
Are comedy clips-as-UGC the same as cute-pet-footage -as-UGC?
Seems like an incredibly broad, imprecise category to be drawing conclusions from.
Survey Skeptic on July 24th, 2008 at 6:02 pm - Permalink
[...] pesquisa, desta vez da Ipsos, revela que os usuários de internet são menos tolerantes a anúncios em [...]
Tiago Dória Weblog » Blog Archive » Quanto menor e mais engraçado, mais visto é on July 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm - Permalink
“Amateur or homemade video clips” implies that the video was made for fun or as a hobby. All the other categories imply production expenses. I think the only thing this study is telling us is that people think that amateurs (or big video hosting sites for that matter) shouldn’t be making money off people’s hobbies. Where expenses are implied, people have less of a problem with ads.
I agree with Survey Skeptic. The term “User Generated Content” is incredibly vague. Is all UGC made by amateurs just for fun, as a hobby? …Or is some UGC made with the specific intention to make money as a business? Or is UGC anything shot with a HandyCam without a tripod? UGC doesn’t really describe anything. It means different things to different people and by using a vague term like this in the title of the article I think you are mis-representing the study.
Also, aren’t “Movie/TV trailers or previews” and “music videos” already ads themselves? I’m confused by that part of the study.
Eric Susch on July 24th, 2008 at 11:35 pm - Permalink
I am sick of “UGC” referring to episodic content. When I am a user… I am a user, when I am a producer, I am a producer. Shouldn’t ALL of these categories be considered “UGC” if anyone in the production process has ever used a streaming video site to watch a video?
Fraser on July 25th, 2008 at 12:17 am - Permalink