(Note: the ad above is not from the preroll. We just like it)
Raise your hand if you tried to watch the inauguration online, but gave up and ran to the TV when the site you were watching timed out? We did!
Some of you may have been annoyed by the preroll — on AgencySpy we hosted a Hulu embed video with pre-roll for Paul Blart, Mall Cop, the wannabe one-note comedy starring (and written by) Kevin James. We hope never to see his fat ass in security guard garb ever again. Annoyance!
Anyway, WebNewswer’s Chris Ariens writes that more than twice as many people as expected watched online. That fact was a boon for Audi, which expected 30 million views but got 70 million for their preroll on ABC, CBS, WaPo, MSNBC and other news sites. Wonder if those were uniques or what, because we for one clicked play no fewer than five times before giving up and going for the telly.
Ariens covers that point: “msnbc.com gave the most views with 16.3 million; ABCNews.com gave 15.9 million; washingtonpost.com, 14 million and CBSNews.com, 11.4 million.
But the surge in views is no doubt do in part to the stalling of the stream for many users, including us. The freeze-up meant users would refresh and the ad would roll again.”
Cue poll.