Snapchat Might Start Forcing Unskippable Ads On You For 3 Seconds

Snapchat has had a bit of a rough trot lately, suffering through a number of problems around profitability. Unfortunately, the potential answer to its woes is going to be a pain in your ass.

You see, the platform already serves up advertising to its audience in between viewing stories, but that shit is severely skippable, meaning most users flick it away within a mere second. I mean, why would you sit through an ad if you don’t have to?

In order to address this issue, Snapchat is currently considering making ads skippable after three seconds only, forcing you to watch for at least that long before you move on. This would keep the company’s advertisers happy and allow them to charge more for ad spaces.

While many at Snapchat are cautious about forcing ads on its audience, the ad sales team is pushing hard for the changes. “Advertisers are not spending as much as they have previously with Snapchat,” a top advertiser from a brand that works with the platform told AdAge.

“They have to do something that draws more interest from advertisers, and they are getting more aggressive to address the market’s needs.”

“They need ads that can keep people’s attention for longer periods of times.”

According to the US Media Rating Council, a video ad needs to be watched for a minimum of two seconds for it to be considered “viewable”. Just if and when the company will decide to implement the feature, let alone test it, is uncertain at this stage.

To be fair, it was probably only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen given the platform’s shrinking user base, and here we are.


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