Maybe old news, but I’d never noticed it until playing with ABC’s new HD streaming player. In an interesting but arguably least valuable piece of ad inventory yet, ABC launches a full-page interstitial-esque ad when a user pauses a stream on the player. The content window shrinks and is pushed aside to create a full player banner unit to take its place. See below.

Clearly this is designed to create added value for the show’s sponsors, but what is this ad unit designed to accomplish? The user has willingly disengaged to do something else. Yes, I know it extends the brand throughout the entire user experience. And yes, you may as well fill the screen with something while the viewer answers the phone. But is this not the online advertising equivalent of “if a tree falls in the forest….”? Or is this more of their version of an ad that plays when someone fast forwards through the ad pod on their DVR?

Thoughts???

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 10:07 am and is filed under Real Ads, Streaming, WebTV, advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.