Instream and Accompanying Content Video
Background
As of April 2024, IAB’s new guidelines for what constitutes an instream player are rolling out across the industry.
The full update can be found here, and its main points are listed below:
In-stream video players will be required to be set to “sound-on” by default at the start – but due to Chrome’s auto-muting of most video players that can’t be the sole criteria. “Explicit demonstrated intent to watch the video” is also suitable for in-stream classification.
There will be a new field called “plcmt” that will contain the new values and can exist in tandem with the legacy “placement” during an ample migration period.
There should be a distinction between outstream placements without editorial video content and those that only contain standalone ads.
The previously defined values of in-article and in-feed were found to be a confusing distinction without much difference and were removed in favor of the new categories, which are a better proxy for value. If these style players contain video content, they will fall under the collapsed new category called “Accompanying Content.”
The Gist
Video players are expected to flag themselves, in requests to advertisers, as one of these 3 categories:
Instream - players serving editorial content that the user came to the page for
User intent - the player only starts when the user clicks ‘play’
Unmuted by default
Accompanying Content - plays editorial content that isn’t the main thing the user came to the page for
No user intent required - can auto-play
Must be muted by default
Outstream - this definition remains unchanged; players that serve only ads, with no editorial content
Browsi Player Updates
Browsi Player is compliant with the new definitions, and marks the player as ‘accompanying content’ as long as it is serving editorial content and not manually marked ‘instream’.
A manual ‘instream’ checkbox will be available through the Video Console’s player design, as long as:
The player serves editorial content
‘Click-to-play’ is enabled
‘Start with audio’ is enabled
A player may meet all of the above conditions, and still not be compliant as instream
Full compliance depends on a your site’s design and the specific content - accordingly, the player will only mark itself as instream when manually flagged in its design
Instream Use Cases
We at Browsi are seeing two main use cases for an instream player:
Video streaming page - a page on your site dedicated to streaming your video content library, where the player is the most prominent element and your catalog is available for users to choose from
Video article - a specific article page, serving specific video content (either exclusively or along with a matching text article)
Reach out to your AM if you would like to explore one of these use cases on your site, or if you have another instream use case in mind.