How Could French Publishers Win Back Advertisers’ Video Budgets? 📱🎬

By Max Legrand · GreyFox Ads · A French perspective on programmatic advertising

Digital video advertising is booming. So why are French Open Web publishers struggling to capture that growth? Maybe we're asking their video players to compete in the wrong game. 🤔

The French video advertising paradox 📈📉

According to the SRI figures cited in the original post, French advertisers' digital video investment grew by more than 20% in 2025. Yet the Alliance Digitale 2025 Open Web barometer indicated a 15.6% decline in video advertising investment on French publishers' websites.

Two directions at once: a growing market and a shrinking slice for the publishers who create much of the French Open Web's editorial content. (These indicators come from different studies and scopes, so they should not be treated as perfectly comparable measures of the same inventory.)

That raises three questions: where is the money going, what do advertisers want from video, and what would make publishers more competitive?

Where is the video money going? 🕵️

Digital video isn't one homogeneous market. CTV, broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD), subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) advertising and social video offer very different experiences. Publishers cannot assume that all video budgets are interchangeable.

My original post points to €2,314 million in mobile social-video-related investment as an illustration of the scale of the opportunity (the exact category and period should be checked in the cited market study before using this as a like-for-like comparison).

So perhaps the more useful competitive benchmark isn't only YouTube or a television-style streaming player. Perhaps it's the mobile social feed.

Why a traditional publisher video player struggles against CTV

Consider the common brief: a 15-, 20- or 30-second creative originally produced for television, deployed across video inventory. Now compare the viewing conditions.

When the creative occupies only a small part of the screen, the advertiser isn't buying the same experience as a fullscreen CTV placement. That matters for attention, even if both impressions are technically classified as video.

What vertical social video gets right 📱

Vertical video works with the way most people naturally hold their smartphones. Fullscreen playback gives the creative room to breathe; the ad becomes a central part of the viewing experience rather than a small rectangle competing with the rest of the page.

For brands, that creates interesting creative possibilities: product demonstrations, short storytelling, visual hooks and mobile-native formats. It also creates the potential for stronger attention (which should be measured rather than assumed).

It's worth remembering that a fullscreen ad isn't automatically a good ad. User choice, skippability, creative quality and the surrounding editorial experience remain essential.

Could French publishers challenge social video on its own turf?

Here is the provocative idea: rather than trying to beat CTV with smaller, often muted versions of television commercials, why not experiment with fullscreen vertical video on the quality French Open Web?

French publishers could combine a mobile-native video experience with advantages that matter to advertisers: recognised editorial brands, a clearer understanding of placement context, and more transparent supply paths.

That would require product and editorial choices, not just a new ad size. Publishers would need to think carefully about the relationship between the video and the content people actually came to consume.

For the broader case for better mobile formats, see why fullscreen formats could help the Open Web and why mobile deserves more attention than the CTV hype suggests.

What would prove the model works? 📊

Publishers and advertisers could test vertical fullscreen placements against their existing video products on the same or comparable campaigns. Useful measures would include:

• Human attention: qualified attention time and actual screen presence, not just a technical impression.
• Video completion: completion rate interpreted alongside video duration and user behaviour.
• Brand outcomes: recall, lift or other outcomes when a suitable study is available.
• User experience: abandonment, session quality and whether the ad disrupts access to content.
• Publisher economics: net revenue per session, fill rate and sustainable advertiser demand.

There is no guarantee that a vertical format will outperform every existing player. The point is to test a different proposition, rather than continuing to compete under conditions that favour CTV.

A bigger opportunity for the French Open Web 🦊

The full argument appeared in my Open Garden article on how French publishers could regain video advertising share. Thanks again to Nicolas Jaimes for opening the discussion.

At GreyFox Ads, we believe a quality French Open Web can deliver real advertising effectiveness. Our Master Deal brings curated inventory and fragmented targeting opportunities together under one Deal ID, while our curation consultancy supports publishers and trading desks looking to improve their programmatic strategies.

For more context on the video ecosystem, read why YouTube can be open content inside a walled garden and what broadcasters can learn from shorter ad breaks.

Original LinkedIn post: Read the original post.

Article and analysis by Max Legrand, founder of GreyFox Ads in France.