YouTube's adding a new option to help advertisers get their message to consumers — but in a much shorter amount of time than normal. Today the company announced that beginning next month, it'll offer six-second "Bumper" ads that are designed to be a better companion to the shorter video clips that millions of YouTube users are watching on smartphones. "We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads — and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them," YouTube's Zach Lupei wrote in a blog post. You can see a sample of one below, which was an early test by Atlantic Records.

The company justifies the short ads (which cannot be skipped, unlike longer spots) by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds turn to mobile as their first option for consuming video — and keep in mind a ton of that is music. YouTube's new Bumpers don't replace other ad formats; it's just being added as another choice. Lupei says YouTube will keep expanding its advertising options so that they're always "uniquely adapted to the way people watch video now, and in the future."