Google's YouTube: Not so dirty little secrets
Google’s secret weapon is a four letter word I have oft said: SPIN.
The most lucrative Googley spin of all? People WANT Google ads, as much as they want content, as I discuss in Google Gmail: Do you want ads?
In fact, Gmail users have even told us that they've found our ads to be interesting and even useful, Google proudly underscores.
Google Apps Standard includes “relevant text based ads along side email,” an optional “feature” in Google Apps Premier. While advertising is not typically considered a software "feature," Google, of course, has chosen to ignore conventional wisdom in designing its business.
Conventional wisdom such as paying content owners for the commercial exploitation of their property, appropriately disclaiming advertorial content…
(see Google CEO upholds YouTube copyright infringing business model and Will Google corner the ‘paid link’ market, too?)Google’s YouTube has proudly jumped on the advertising cum content bandwagon as well, as I heard Susie Reider extol at the Advertising Research Foundation conference in New York City Monday.
Reider recommended that marketers ask themselves “Is this content or is this an ad,” when considering uploading videos to YouTube. The goal of the exercise, however, is not to determine if an advertorial disclaimer is required, but to ensure that, indeed, “ads must be thought of as content.”
YouTube’s marketing exec recommended “clever” ways for advertisers to leverage the YouTuber community to their advantage. The most clever, apparently, is for “commercials as content.”
Reider offered up a “best practices” video seeking “participation” via an “authentic connection” with YouTubers, by not revealing the paid sponsorship placement until the final frame.
Reider presented other not so dirty little YouTube secrets.
Think YouTube is a hip, hot playground for twenty somethings and younger? Think again.
In reporting Rolling Stone magazine’s jump into the social networking fray, I underscored that contrary to popular, and perhaps wishful, belief, trendy properties such as MySpace and Facebook are not off limits to the “mature” demo that is considered “geriatric” by many in the blogosphere.
(see Web 2.0 ages: Poor old media? and Social Networking for the masses: Rise of ‘The Sleuth’)
YouTube is no kindergarten either, according to Reider. Not only is usage of YouTube evenly distributed across age brackets, more than 60% of users fall into the age 35 and older demographic.
No discrimination at YouTube. Every YouTuber is entitled to enjoy video advertising cum content, regardless of age!
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