Since I last posted my opinion (as well as Joe Jaffe's) on the question of what makes for effective post-roll advertising there have been a number of developments and stories on that topic. Considering the findings of this eMarketer study that shows online video usage going nowhere but up this is an important conversation to keep having.

The first was from Ian Schafer, president of entertainment marketing agency Deep Focus. Schafer links to both Jaffe and I but then goes into why pre-roll advertising can be an effective tool. Yes, he says, pre-roll ads are intrusive and often are un-targeted and irrelevant to what the viewer is about to watch. But he makes a good point when he says part of the problem is that we're used to seeing ads within professional content. They also have to be scaled against the video they're supporting. I'm not willing watch a 30-second spot that's run before a 12-second video of someone's dog digging up the garden. Ultimately Schafer points out that what's most important in this debate is that the ads get better and are delivered in a better manner.
Videoegg, according to Heather Green at BusinessWeek, has an interesting business model. The company publishes consumer-generated video and inserts a small bit of text at the bottom that, when you click on it, turns into a full ad. The service is getting good click-through rates, which is a good thing. This model, unlike pre-roll, is not intrusive or interuptive and therefore might be more palatable to viewers.

Of course pre-roll isn't going anywhere soon. Its similarity to TV advertising makes it instantly familiar to buyers and sellers. It's that comfort level that's likely led to Reuters adding pre-roll ads to the mobile version of its video section. When the ads begin going live they'll be in 15-second form.

Schafer's right when he says that what's needed most are better ads. People might stand to be inconvenienced but only if they're getting something out of it. As he says, the trade-off of our time for free content has to be worth it for consumers to accept it. I think the real breakthrough will come when we can program our own channels. Ads can then be delivered to those channels that are relevant to our past behavior and what kind of videos we have queued up to watch. This will at least help them connect to the viewer in slightly better way than they do now.

I still more or less agree with Joe Jaffe that pre-roll ads are the last vestiges of the 30-second spot, an ad format that's dying more and more with each passing year. But since they don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, and with online video still very much in the toddler stage, I think it's best we concentrate on making the format the best it can be for both advertiser and viewer.