Communication Apps: Instagram introduces ad breaks which have a 3–5 second countdown to an unskippable advertisement.
Instagram users have reportedly been noticing unavoidable ads that appear directly on their timeline. These ads use a count down timer of between 3 and 5 seconds and forces users to watch the ad through to its completion before allowing them to move on to the rest of the website.
The feature description explains: Ad breaks are a new form by which ads are seen on Instagram. At other times, you might be forced to watch an ad before you will be allowed to continue scrolling again.
This feature is at the moment only available to a limited amount of users as Instagram tries to understand how it is received. While there has been no official announcement about a widespread rollout, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Instagram is indeed testing this functionality: “We are constantly experimenting on the formats that can help deliver value to the advertisers.
Of course, as we experiment and make changes to the process, we will communicate the results of this test and whether it will lead to any changes in the future products/formats.
The leakage of information about this novation has been expanded through users’ reports, but other information from Instagram representatives is still awaited.
The use of unavoided ads is Instagram’s ongoing endeavour to discover efficient advertisement platforms that can be useful to users and brands concurrently. Thus, the results of this test can ultimately decide whether these ads need to be further utilized on a broader level.
The extreme testing of ad content brings attention to the continued business objective of monetization within social media sites, which are becoming more mindful of the ad disruption over time. Indeed, as Instagram adapts to this balance, user feedback during testing before the launch of the feature will determine the experience of the final implementation of the “Ad Break” feature.
Both customers and advertisers will be monitoring and waiting for this new modes of advertisement closely.
