YouTube: Don’t Blame Me If You Produce Crap
In my last posting, I hinted that YouTube may help accelerate the trend of Hollywood studios starting to produce advertiser-created content. Here is why.
I am always reading rumors about who is (or should) buyout YouTube. But so far, they have remained independent; but more importantly, they have been staking out a new model for advertising — one that it interesting to contemplate.
They could have easily sold out to the man. As Tom Hespos, President Underscore Marketing, said: "the obvious way to monetize a site full of interesting video clips is to disregard the user experience and begin running pre-roll video ads. Certainly there's no shortage of advertisers who want to show their television commercials online. YouTube could have had advertisers back up the proverbial Dump truck full of money."
If the owners at YouTube followed the traditional script, they would adopt the pre-roll model, float an IPO, cash out and then move on to the next opportunity a whole lot richer. But maybe the management group at YouTube has a different idea. Maybe they want to change the rules of the road as significantly as Google did when they pioneered search advertising. When YouTube debuted their model, the pre-roll ads were conspicuously missing (finally, something different) and "co-branded channels" played a big role.
"So what!" you may ask. Well, the branded channel strategy shifts the responsibility for performance right at the feet of the advertiser. The message is clear: Load up a co-branded channel with content that can't stand on its own and you'll waste your money. No more firing off quick "buy now" ads and relying solely on the publisher to force-feed the message to the audience. YouTube users are fully in control, and if they don't like what they see, they won't even consider watching it.
So, let's contemplate this a little deeper. What YouTube is really saying is that their role is to create the platform and give advertisers access to it. It doesn't take on the responsibility of making sure that the person viewing an ad clicks over to the advertiser's Web site. It's really up to the advertiser to make something compelling.
Even if YouTube fails, just glad that they've waved off the dump truck and cast their vote for the user experience.
Posted by admin on September 5th, 2006 :: Filed under Business Trends,Internet TV
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