Advertising today is a balancing act.  Everyone realizes that you can’t just shove ads down people’s throats.  There are too many ways to change the channel – or just completely block you.

But advertisers are not going to go gentle into that good night.   They need sales and they’ll find a way to make people look at their brand, even if it’s just a glance.

That’s basically the idea behind bumper ads, which have two important components:

1. They can’t be longer than 6 seconds.
2. They can’t be skipped.

Here are some bumper ad examples.

Six-Second Vignettes

What can you say in six seconds?  If you’re clever, you can say quite a lot.  But you probably can’t communicate your entire value proposition.

Bumper ads are best thought of as short, advertising vignettes.  They’re brand reminders that hit your target audience with a single idea.  For example, this old magazine headline would have made a good bumper ad:

For most businesses, bumper ads are part of a series that covers the complete message, and also that complement longer TrueView video ads.

Many bumper ads use humor because getting a laugh out of someone is a great way to get them to remember a short message.

To create a bumper ad, think of one clear message you can convey fast.  A single point you want people to remember.

In a way, the short simplicity of bumper ads makes them easier to deal with than a complete video.  On the other hand, you may use the complete idea of a full video and break it up to develop your bumper ads.

You’ve got 6 seconds to make me remember you.  What will you say?

Setting Up Bumper Ads

Bumper ads are particularly effective on mobile when appearing before short feature videos.  If you ever found yourself having to wait through a 30-second ad just to watch a 45-second video, you understand the need for bumper ads.

You’ll mainly target mobile audiences but otherwise will probably select similar targeting to your TrueView ads.

Bumper ads are CPM, meaning you pay per thousand impressions.

Here is an overview of how to set-up bumper ads:

Bumper ads have a lot of value because people will watch them.  You can still grab someone’s attention for 6 seconds.

These ads are ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency of brand messaging.  As suggested in the video, you can build retargeting lists from people who engaged with some of your other video content or who visited your website, then drive home your brand messaging with bumper ads.  This results in more brand level searches from people as they get farther along in the buying cycle.

Internet audiences are elusive and impatient.  The short and sweet format of bumper ads is an effective way to reach them.