If you keep up to date with our blog, first of all, hello- welcome back- how are you? Secondly, you may have read our article about YouTube and their new ad programme which was spoken in further detail this week at the YouTube annual advertising industry extravaganza in London's Battersea Park on the 13th October 2015. The night summarised showed how YouTube is going after TV advertising in a huge way, convincing advertisers to shift their budgets from TV to YouTube- as technology and culture advances, so should advertising was the message.
The night was full of celebrities, Rita Ora performed, as well as McBusted frontman Tom Fletcher who sang a song with his sister Carrie about vlogging. Vlogging is a popular type of YouTube video where people video blog their lives, of which Fletcher and his sister produce lots of. The two upload videos documenting their lives and titled for each other in a 'Dear Carrie,' 'Dear Tom' format- of which they receive a high view count of and have managed to take their careers from pop star and west end musical singer, to also be rather large self made YouTube stars.
YouTube showcased the large amount of talent on their platform as the night was catered by Sorted Food, who have become 'YouTube famous' by uploading recipes and cooking know how. You may have gotten to know them in the 5 seconds before you skip the annoying YouTube advert as the four friends that like to cook together as they become the stars of a huge YouTube advertising campaign. The four founders have recently been on a three month US tour off the back of their channels success, recording video reports for NBC's 'Today' show. They produce videos from 'Chia seed breakfast bowl recipe' to 'Honeycomb Cannelloni recipe,' a good one looks to be the Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream recipe I have inserted below!
It wasn't just part of a budget YouTube want you to spend on advertising with them over the traditional TV ads, but almost a quarter of your budget. Eileen Naughton, who is Google's UK and Ireland Managing Director used statistics throughout her speech to persuade advertisers to make this move, this one has stood out, “Advertisers reach their target audiences far more efficiently by adding YouTube to their media plans … especially the hard to reach 16 to 34-year-olds where cost per reach point is optimised when 24% of your TV budget is allocated to YouTube.”
Business Insider, in an interview with Naughton (you can read the full thing here) told them that, "YouTube is a mainstream platform for video consumption. It’s as effective as TV as a marketing platform, and in certain cohorts, more effective. If you’re going after young 16 to 24-year-olds, they are 100% on YouTube in this country and 98% have smartphones, so that’s the kind of behaviour we’re seeing — and it’s actually across every demographic; the UK happens to be a very video consumptive country. Our positioning is that YouTube has really become this fantastic platform for distribution and one where you get real engagement, particularly with ads. Four of the top 10 trending videos last year were ads. That’s telling you something.”
The statistics do the talking for themselves, YouTube does reach more 18-49 year olds in America than any cable network they have over there. It would then make sense to advertise on the platform over any TV space you may be paying for. There is the pesky problem that few people want to see the YouTube ads, they want to watch the content they went on the platform to watch, and so how much of the adverts will be watched the whole way through instead of skipped after the forced 5 seconds remains to be seen. On the other hand, when an advert is good, it is shared and watched for the entertainment value, such as Budweiser's USA Super Bowl commercial, of which I have spoken about before but I really love this dog, okay?
https://youtu.be/uQB7QRyF4p4?list=PLSTz8jpJdr5qSwmFacIKS8vEftrqAFQj_
The night sounded a good one, and if the trends carry on over the next few years as they are doing, YouTube could be the next platform for traditional advertising we have only seen on TV so far, however it is still a way off. TV is watched in the US in a linear scheduled way, for almost 5 hours per day per person vs Youtube which is around half this figure. These statistics come from the Nielsen company, you can see the graph yourself below.
From the Neilsen Company
Despite being a long way off until advertising is fully taken away from TV, YouTube advertising is picking up steam, and is presenting statistics that will be hard to ignore by advertisers- so watch this space for any updated news, and be prepared to see many new adverts on the platform!
