Why nobody is bypassing the GEICO internet ad

Published March 5, 2015 at 9:59 am

Anyone running campaign automation should be aware of the importance of reaching possible customers quickly and giving them all the information they need. YouTube videos have been a popular spot for advertising in recent years, and viewers often find video ads playing in front of the content they were looking for. Sometimes they are able to skip these after the first five seconds, therefore bypassing the video.

Leave it to GEICO, famous for its humorous approach to advertising, to find a solution that keeps its brand front and center. The insurance company has new video ads that deliberately toy with the five second window, and find an ingenious way to entice viewers to watch the whole thing, as AdWeek recently reported.

These ads present a short scene in which someone says the word “savings,” the GEICO logo appears, and a narrator informs the viewer that the ad is already over. However, while the actors freeze in place, other things around them continue to move. In a family dinner scene, a dog jumps on a table and begins eating food off of plates. Only those who stay get to see how the full ad really “ends.”

Apparently, this experiment has been working for the company so far. The one family-themed ad has more than 2 million views alone. Other ads in the series have far viewer views but are still over 100,000.

Whether your business is focused on growing video ads or some other form of online marketing, keeping engagement in mind is crucial. Capturing attention quickly in any medium adds to the likelihood that a person is going to stay interested. Decentralized marketing ensures that strong marketing strategies reach the widest range of possible customers however they like to use the internet.