If you’ve recently encountered an ad on Snapchat you can’t skip, it’s not due to any bug or problem with the app. The company has merely started testing six-second TV commercial-like ads, confirming a previous report about their rollout this month. According to AdAge, some of the ephemeral app’s first unskippable ads include promos for Deadpool 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S9. They don’t show you how much time you have left to watch until you tap on the screen to skip it and — surprise! — find out that you can’t.
The good news is that these ads won’t pop up in your friends’ posts — they’ll only appear in professionally produced Shows in Snapchat’s Discover section by publishing partners like Disney, NBC and MTV-owner Viacom. Snapchat is testing these forced-view ads, because advertisers are reportedly unhappy that the average ad viewing time on the platform is only two seconds. “They can’t build a viable ad-supported platform without changing,” a digital agency exec told AdAge.
While you can’t instantly dismiss the experimental ads like you could the other ones on the platform, they’re also less robust in a way. Those six seconds are all you get, since they don’t link to longer videos or e-commerce experiences. At least the initial batch doesn’t — future ones may find a way to be unskippable and interactive at the same time.
