UM has joined other media agencies in boycotting publishers who use autoplay in their video units, but sources said the agency is one of the lowest spending agencies on video inventory.
The agency has introduced a ban on buying inventory from Fairfax websites. UM said the decision was made on the back of study that revealed “high levels of annoyance and rejection of Fairfax pages” because of autoplay, which enables a video to automatically play unless the viewer instructs the site not to serve the video.
UM said it brought the issue to the attention of Fairfax representatives on several occasions, but had decided to take action in the interests of clients including the Government, Coles, Microsoft and Sony Pictures.
The agency declined to reveal how much of its clients' money it spends with Fairfax, but described the sum as “not insignificant”. However, sources took issue with this claim, and said the move would not hurt Fairfax. One source said the agency did not even spend six figures on video inventory with Fairfax.
Newly installed UM Australia chief executive Mat Baxter said: “Our research revealed just how alienated people have become with the practice and how damaging it can be for brands to be associated with it, so effective immediately we will not be purchasing video on Fairfax until autoplay is removed.”
Some of the large media agencies have already adopted the practice of refusing to buy inventory in video units which use autoplay including WPP's group buying investment company, GroupM, and Ikon Communications.
National chief executive of GroupM media agency, Maxus, David Gaines, said the agency had reduced spend to “virtually nothing in the last year with anyone fluffing figures".
He said: "It’s a ridiculous to pay a CPM for auto-play where in reality, what you are paying for most of the time is the length of time it takes someone to turn off your ad, not engage with it. But the sell is the same as paying for a click to play engagement.
“It’s a shame as online video is a good access point for clients who are unfamiliar with digital because we can more readily create campaigns in content formats they are comfortable with. It can be a good toe in the water. But this approach just dilutes the positives and actually skews what we think online video results provide."
Managing partner of Ikon, Daniel Johns, said the agency has “never actually bought autoplay video units for our clients, preferring only to buy user initiated video”.
“We will continue to not buy autoplay across all publishers, but will buy user initiated video including Fairfax if it meets the following additional requirements,” Johns added.
The agency also imposes a frequency cap of two videos per day, per user, and ad content ratios regarding the number of ads appearing in a piece of video content.
Johns said serious momentum was building around the autoplay issue, and predicted that Fairfax will back down on the issue.
Fairfax declined to comment.
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