How Quickly are you turned off a video? intro/credits/call to action

[Crown]

Q1) - Intros

• What kind of intro's turn you off from a video?
• Have you ever left a video because of an intro?
• Are there any intros you enjoy? who makes them?

I'll usually make my mind up in the first 20 seconds if I'm sticking around or not. I don't like any kind of intro usually, but if there is one, it had better be less than 10 seconds.

I think YouTube is just like meeting new people. As humans, we usually "decide" if we like someone within the first few seconds of meeting someone. It's the same on YouTube but often for different reasons.

Reasons I'll stop watching (all genres):
-Annoying voice
-Annotations anywhere except the end of the video in the outro.
-Asking me to sub, like or share anywhere except the end in the outro.
-Copyrighted content
-Clickbait


Reasons I'll stop watching (by genre):

For vloggy channels:
-Trying too hard to be edgy, cool or someone else. Basically fakeness in all its forms.
-Bad audio quality.


For comedy channels:
-If I don't find it funny. Simple as that (and I agree what's "funny" is different for everyone)

For educational / tutorials:
-No commentary, but just text on screen with annoying background music.
-Text to speech robotic voice commentary.
- Bad at explaining / taking ages to get to the point
- Commentary with a terrible mic and audio.

Q2) - Credits

• Do you ever read the credits?
• What credits do you hate/like?
• How long should they be?

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean the credits in the description ? (the YT feature ?) - I never read them unless I suspect stolen content.

Q3) - Calls to action (this includes any section in a video where a youtuber directs their subs to a site of theirs, a product, or to subscribe/like)

• Any good examples/bad examples?
• Has a call to action ever turned you off from subscribing? or made you decide to subscribe?

-Asking me to sub, like or share anywhere except the end in the outro annoys me.

Other annoying stuff - Phrases like:

"Ok, let's get this to 100 likes."
"Don't forget to smash that like button."

(for some reason, gamers do this a lot)

 

[wasabiroots]

Why I stop watching a video rarely depends on the intros but here goes:

Q1) - Intros

• What kind of intro's turn you off from a video?
  When they start with "why hello there" or
  

  "Hello! I'm [Insert channel/person's name here] and today, we're going to be doing X or talking about Y."

  or when the intro is louder than the content itself... Yea just no.

• Have you ever left a video because of an intro?
  Yes when the intro is louder than the content either before or after. Such a turn off.

• Are there any intros you enjoy? who makes them?
  I personally like JonTron's intro. Pretty long and yes I skip it every time. Lol! I usually just skip intros and give videos a chance unless they're louder than the content itself...
  
  Yes I really don't understand why people leave their intro louder than everything else or anything in their videos suddenly gets loud... Yea I'm gone...

Q2) - Credits (as in their outro?)

• Do you ever read the credits?
  Rarely
  
  
• What credits do you hate/like?
  Everything is the same to me. I usually just skip them anyways. Unless there are bloopers or something funny happening but sometimes I skip them as well.
  
  
• How long should they be?
  Short or I'll skip it. Even my own is 5 seconds long and it goes straight to the credits around 2-3 seconds of my last sentence.

Q3) - Calls to action (this includes any section in a video where a youtuber directs their subs to a site of theirs, a product, or to subscribe/like)

• Any good examples/bad examples?
  I wish I knew. I usually just ignore it and close it anyways if it obstructs the video. Or skip it.
  
  
• Has a call to action ever turned you off from subscribing? or made you decide to subscribe?
  No and No.

Also if you use these yourself, what have you noticed personally for you?
(check retention times and card/annotation click rates to see how good or not so good they perform for you)

I use cards and annotations mostly at the end of my videos during the 5 second credits. I don't think mine's pretty successful. But I don't really have anything to compare it with. Tho I find it funny how people still feel like closing an annotation even at the end of the video. Heh~

Spoiler: Here are my overall analytics in the last 28 days for annotations and cards.

 

[GucciCarry]

I'm too lazy to make my post fancy so I'll just go ahead and say. I really hate intros. Theres a reason I don't do them. You have to catch peoples attention quick and seeing the same intro over and over on a channel gets old. I never understand why people like doing them. As for credits, meh.

 

[HaileySimone]

Intros
- LONG and LOUD ones
- No, I usually just skip the intro, and watch the first 5 seconds and if it's crap too then I'm out
- I'm sure there are. I can't give any examples. Simple & short is key

Credits
- Nah. Not unless I was really into it and wondering who did (insert something cool here)
- All credits are really the same to me
- A minute or less

Calls to action
- Good examples are to the side and not distracting. Bad examples are confusing and take up the whole screen
- Yes and yes

I don't use intros or credits, mainly because I put the credits in the video desc and an intro for me I just don't see necessary. In the future I will probably use calls to actions to encourage people to subscribe and check out my music

 

[Gaijillionaire]

• What kind of intro's turn you off from a video?

"Hey guys welcome to my channel!"

• Have you ever left a video because of an intro?

See above.

• Are there any intros you enjoy? who makes them?

I don't really know but it's a shame that we can't have channels with full open and closing the mess like real tv. Too many people would skip them, but the ones on real tv I love

• Do you ever read the credits?

Yes, if they're there. They worked hard

• What credits do you hate/like?

Parody

• How long should they be?

As long as they need to be.

(this includes any section in a video where a youtuber directs their subs to a site of theirs, a product, or to subscribe/like)

• Any good examples/bad examples?

The slick ones start before the talking point of the video is finished.

• Has a call to action ever turned you off from subscribing? or made you decide to subscribe?

I only subscribe to personal friends. Will never change

 

[MintApocalypse]

I'm not really a fan of intros other than a specific way someone says hi or welcome. I used to absolutely hate intro intros, but there are some good ones out there, like h3h3 productions' intro (at least in my opinion).
I wouldn't necessarily leave a video because of an intro. I've tried an intro once on my channel, but I just didn't like it so I tossed it after one video.

I only put credits on videos that were school projects, mainly because they were collaborated on. Most of the time if I'm going to credit people I'll throw them in the description because that's where people will generally look for more information. I look at credits sometimes, but not all the time.

I'm so used to calls to action at this point I really don't mind when people say them, I do prefer if, unless it makes since in the context of the video, they are only said at the end, because it's not like we haven't all heard them millions of time, but your content is what I want to see, you know? I've found that the best way to use call to actions are just to pick one or two things to ask your viewers to do, especially if you're a small channel, and it doesn't always have to be asking people to subscribe to you, you can get creative with what you use as your call to action.

 

[iMSaiyan]

I think we can all come to an unanimous decision about long dub step intros lol *proceeds to make one for myself*

 

[YetAnotherGamer]

As what most people seem to agree here, I think shorter intros are better. I remember Game Theory had a really long intro and even though it was well made I would prefer to skip it. Bad intros don't make me not watch the video though, I would at least see what's after that. Oh, and I usually don't watch credits.

 

[Lightsen]

Q1) - Intros

• I hate anything that starts like "Hello! I'm [Insert channel/person's name here] and today, we're going to be doing X or talking about Y."
• I don't think so? Though, that's a lie as I'm pretty sure I have at one point. Typically, if I want to see the content of a video, I'll wait through the intro. It just depends on how obnoxious it is.
• Game Grumps has a fantastic intro! For non-grump purposes I think @WhaddupNico on Twitter is pretty great for branding, intros, etc.

Q2) - Credits

• Sometimes. I will if it's a goof credit sequence cause those are usually hilarious. If they're legitimate credits though, I might not stick around.
• Parody are my favorites.
• As long as they need to be. I'd say keep it under 30 seconds if you can.

Q3) - Calls to action(this includes any section in a video where a youtuber directs their subs to a site of theirs, a product, or to subscribe/like)

• I'm going to keep pointing to Game Grumps for this one. They are fantastic with their ads. Look up their christmas crunchyroll ads and their christmas merch. It's great because it's humorous and enjoyable to watch, even if you're not interested in buying something. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to say what good/bad ones are. I struggle with these myself.
• Definitely! But I wouldn't be able to recall why. I dunno. Some people are dangerously likeable.

GameGrumps have awesome intros, I also liked game theory's @GrgakGames has a fun one. and I like the nostalgia critic one (though i tend to skip their skits just after the intro, since it ends up taking 5 mins to get to the review)

 

[Snake delta]

one think that's starting to put me off some videos , is the call to action please like sub subscribe before the videos started even the bigger youtubers are starting doing this , its getting really boring just have an exit trailer thanks for watching but before your video have even started its a turn off for me