YouTube TV's Zen Ads
Is it just a clever gimmick or has YouTube cracked the code for TV commercials?
Whenever we turn on the TV or play a video online, we're bombarded with ads. Pre-rolls, mid-rolls, post-rolls, ads of all shapes and sizes come at us whether we like it or not.
And let's face it, Google and YouTube specifically are companies that run on ad revenue. This is vital to their bottom line and even if you're paying for a subscription, you're likely still seeing some type of advertisement when using their services.
That's probably why I've been so pleasantly surprised by a certain type of ad I've been seeing lately while watching content on YouTube TV.
I've written about my love for YouTube TV before. As someone who has been very anti-cable television for a long time, they actually figured out a way to get me excited to pay for television. They've made it smart, relatively easy to use, and the downright most convenient way for me to watch most content on any screen in my home using just my voice.
And yet, they’re still a television provider. And these channels that they stream still feature commercials like they would when watching on any other cable television provider. Except not always..
If you've watched YouTube TV before, you've likely seen the screen shot below.
It is technically a commercial, but not your typical commercial. The fine folks at YouTubeTV are encouraging your to "enjoy the zen". Hmm, I'm suspicious. Why are they doing this and what is being shown in its place if I were watching this exact same content on a traditional cable provider like Comcast?
The short answer here is that YouTube TV is pre-empting other commercial content to remind you that you are watching this show on their service. It’s a bit complicated to get into here but YouTube TV is essentially streaming a traditional cable broadcast. As it goes with streaming, things buffer and time shifts. All commercial ad breaks may not be perfectly aligned to take up the time between TV segments. Sometimes YouTube TV fills this gap with this zen placeholder. Other times, they may not have the rights or ability to air a commercial that is specifically geared to a regional audience that YouTube TV can’t confirm you are a part of.
However it works behind the scenes, it's just another way of differentiating their service from the countless other cable providers or streaming services that air the same content. And this zen ad break essentially becomes a commercial for YouTube TV. You get a quick reminder of the service you’re using to stream this content.
By telling you to enjoy the zen-like serenity of a hummingbird or sea turtle, they're getting their brand in front of your eyes in a much gentler way than a traditional commercial. It's pretty smart actually. And if you're watching a football or basketball game as I often am, you almost stop in your tracks when you hear a quiet ad like this interspersed with all of the beer, snacks, and automobile commercials that are unquestionably "un-zen."
Since I've been a YouTube TV subscriber now for a while, I've become somewhat desensitized to the average zen moments commercial. I know they're part of the experience and they don't often catch my attention like they once did. So of course, YouTubeTV had to kick things up a notch. Depending on your region, you may have seen some zen moments having a sponsor.
Yep, they're growing the variety of their zen commercials and even tailoring them more specifically to the content you're tuning in to watch.
For example, when watching an NFL football game recently, I was presented with a very football-themed zen moment. It was a nice touch to see a field being watered rather than the typical babbling brook or nature scene. It's less about the specific imagery they use here, and it's more about them capturing my attention. It seems like other YouTube TV subscribers are seeing short-lived zen commercial experiments that are hard to capture or replicate. I even read one viewers claim of seeing an entire “zen halftime” rather than the typical halftime nonsense during an NFL broadcast. YouTube TV is certainly testing some things as Google is prone to do.
It may seem odd to be advertising the thing that you've already paid for, but it's a smart marketing maneuver if I don't say so myself. Especially leading up to the Super Bowl where people often gather at a friend's house to watch the big game. If you don't subscribe to YouTube TV and their zen advertising practices, you may be seeing them for the first time when attending a Super Bowl party at a YouTube TV subscribing friend's house. Although I'd be curious to see if YouTube TV pre-empts any of the big-ticket Super Bowl commercials that casual fans are tuning in to watch. That seems less likely than cutting in during a standard commercial break, but we shall see.
With fewer and fewer events being considered as "must watch live TV", companies need to get clever with how they slip their ads in front of unsuspecting eyeballs. Prior to using YouTube TV, I was a long-standing TiVo supporter. Hell, I even wrote a loving "Ode to TiVo" as I saw their service slipping into my personal old technology graveyard. But what was TiVo perhaps best known for? Sure, they let you have your own digital video recording device, but they were actually pioneers in the fine art of commercial avoidance.
The TiVo commercial skip technology really was key to their popularity. Everyone in the know would program their remotes to quickly skip ahead in 30 second intervals to eliminate commercials. In their later days, they were even able to automatically cut commercials out of some of the shows you recorded on a regular basis.
The cat and mouse game of avoiding commercials and finding more native, cleverly-integrated ways to keep people watching ads will continue to play out. I'm curious to see how YouTube TV evolves this technology. They could keep it as a relatively innocuous easter egg of watching TV on their platform versus others. Or they could really double down on the feature and offer various levels of subscription that may bump up the percentage of "zen ads" instead of traditional commercials. And then the consumer can decide if a couple extra bucks each month would be worth it to watch hummingbirds and waterfalls in 30-second increments instead of loud music promoting beer, snacks, and automobiles...
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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