Pre-Roll on YouTube? Not So Fast

MediaPost (reg req’d) is reporting today the results of a Harris Poll on online video and attitudes toward pre-roll, with a focus on YouTube. What the results suggest is that Google must be cautious about how it further monetizes the site and that video pre-roll ads will not be well received:

Nearly three-quarters of frequent YouTube users said they would visit the site less if it started including short video ads before every clip, according to the results of a recent Harris Poll released Monday. Of those, 42% said they would visit a little less often, and 31%, a lot less often.

YouTube has not publicly stated that it plans to add pre-roll ads to videos. But in a BBC interview after announcing YouTube’s plan to start paying video contributors, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said the site may begin running three-second spots before videos.

While attitudes and behavior don’t always correlate, I believe these findings would likely translate into behavior among a significant segment of the YouTube user population. Pre-roll would be annoying and many would see it as confirmation of their fears that Google was changing the culture of their beloved site. But pre-roll is the quickest and easiest way to monetize traffic with brand advertising. Not going this direction represents a challenge in terms of getting those brand advertisers — one of the reasons Google bought YouTube — onto the site.

This illustrates a larger challenge, which also exists in mobile: what looks possible and even desirable “on paper” (or a conference room whiteboard) may not be practical in actuality. Simply because you’ve got a huge installed base of mobile users doesn’t mean they’ll be watching video or tolerate advertising on their mobile devices.

Proceed with caution. (MediaPost reports that Google has now publicly shunned pre-roll.)

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LostRemote has the full text of the release and discusses the other half of the survey, which says that YouTube users consume less traditional TV.