“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.
Today’s column is by Eric Hochberger, CEO and co-founder, Mediavine.
On the mobile web, outstream is in, and instream is out.
From niche beginnings, outstream has reached near-ubiquity across the web, competing and supplanting the more established instream.
With its latest guidelines, the IAB Tech Lab has effectively ended instream, declaring outstream the primary path for web video inventory.
This shift will mean incredible things for the advertising ecosystem – namely, a transparent buying and selling experience for video inventory that should help supply and demand.
Breaking down the basics
Think of instream like a commercial: a video ad that appears either before, during or after video content that readers are watching. Instream video ads are often referred to as pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll, depending on when they play.
Outstream, conversely, describes ads shown outside of a video environment, e.g., while you’re reading an article or browsing through a feed. That includes videos playing in between paragraphs of text or perhaps in the bottom-right corner of the display, even during (but outside of) another video.
The primary difference is that users are likely more engaged with video if they’re watching instream content, so advertisers charged a premium for it. At least in theory.
How instream stopped being instream
Instream used to make sense, but eventually it led to users just watching advertising without ever getting to see the video content they intended to watch. The very idea of “instream” became a misnomer. Because publishers wanted video revenue, the web was soon awash in low-quality videos that were easy and cheap to produce. Content quality wasn’t a priority – forcing users to watch videos was.
The IAB noticed and made changes. According to their newest guidelines, any experience without audio is now considered outstream. Moreover, due to browser limitations, all autoplay videos must be audio-free, making them outstream by default. Basically, 99% of what we considered instream a few years ago will soon be classified as outstream.
Instream ads will now be limited to those videos users actually click to play and those that have audio playing. Think YouTube or the rare website where you want to watch videos enough to be willing to view ads before or in the middle of content.
The IAB’s changes should be a boon for advertisers, who will know that users are actually choosing to watch content associated with premium instream ad units.
Meanwhile, brands looking to reach broader audiences can keep buying as they were. The only difference now is that this inventory will be properly classified as outstream and will be for sale at more efficient rates.
A brave new world
In this new environment, there’s no longer a need to create video content for the sole purpose of advertising.
Publishers can continue to monetize video, focusing on creating content relevant to their audience (quality) rather than cobbled-together slideshow videos designed to generate ad revenue (quantity). Site owners can focus their limited, expensive video production resources on creating videos that readers actually want to watch, then monetize this content with instream video. The rest of the publisher’s site can be monetized by outstream.
When you combine outstream revenue with value from readers who choose to watch high-quality video, you end up with a net gain.
Video should be designed to be watched. By properly labeling video ads as either instream or outstream, letting publishers create content and enabling brands to buy inventory accordingly, the IAB is moving us toward a fairer, more efficient future.
Follow Mediavine (@mediavine) and AdExchanger (@AdExchanger) on Twitter.
For more articles featuring Eric Hochberger, click here.
