NYTimes.com launches Video Lounge for long-form ads

According to some online advertising experts, pre- and post-roll advertising isn’t giving viewers the best user experience, yet few alternatives exist. The New York Times has made a move towards long-form online videos and have just launched their Video Lounge.

by Helen Leggatt

The New York Times has answered advertiser requests for the opportunity to feature longer video ads on the paper’s website. Instead of placing their advertising adjacent to breaking news videos, or alongside editorial content, advertisers wanted somewhere to showcase long-form videos that interested audiences could engage in outside of the main editorial arena.

In an interview with Beet.TV's Andy Plesser (view the video interview here), NYTimes.com’s vice president for editorial products, Nicholas Ascheim, gave a few reasons why advertisers might want to consider long-form video ads. Ascheim said that if an advertiser “has an area they’ve really dug in to, a product that’s worthy of more explanation or an initiative that they’ve taken outside of their normal realm” then they should look at long-form video ads.

FedEx have become the first company to feature online videos in, what the New York Times are calling, the Video Lounge. Currently the video links appear in a separate section at the foot of the paper’s main video page is a new section called “Video Advertisements”.

Clicking on the displayed video thumbnails takes the user to a branded landing page on which the long-form videos can be viewed and where advertiser links are provided. At the time of writing only FedEx were featured in the Video Lounge.

The Video Lounge will eventually be linked to from various other sections of the website.