Autoplay Videos Are Not Going Away. Here’s How to Fight Them. - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/technology/personaltech/autoplay-video-fight-them.html
Nobody seems to likes autoplay videos — not even people I’ve talked to in the ad industry. The indiscreet videos demand your attention while burning through your mobile data plan and sucking up your batteries. Yet they have become a necessary evil for many media publishers trying to survive in the digital age.
“I think we’ve ended up in a really crappy user experience right now with video advertising,” said Dave Morgan, the chief executive of Simulmedia, which works with advertisers on targeted television ads. “Video has been pushed into every user experience whether or not it fits, because it’s a way to make more money.”
Over the last decade, fast wired and wireless connections spread, as did computers and smartphones. Consumers also became acclimated to streaming video services like Netflix and YouTube. Serving an online video became easy. So advertising firms like BrightRoll and Tremor Video, along with tech companies like Facebook, began testing video ads.
Once they got started, there was no turning back. Video ads generated 20 to 50 times more revenue than traditional display ads, and the best way to get money was to make the videos play automatically, Mr. Morgan said. Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter liked autoplay videos, too, because they were effective at getting people to stick around on their sites, said Taylor Wiegert, a director of user experience strategy for the Martin Agency. Automatically playing videos went from a rarity a decade ago to a prominent online advertising medium today.