YouTube has made changes to “address advertiser concerns” around ad placement clarifying its rules on hate speech.
Speaking via a blog post, YouTube said it would not allow adverts to appear alongside “hateful” or discriminatory content. However, some vloggers have complained the rules are too strict and will affect their income.
The announcement clarifies the kind of content that will not earn money on YouTube describing “hateful” content as any video that promotes discrimination or “disparages or humiliates” people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or “other characteristic associated with systemic discrimination”.
Advertising will also not be placed next to videos using “gratuitously disrespectful language that shames or insults an individual or group.”
Videos deemed to not be “advertiser-friendly” could remain on the video sharing website as long as they don’t fall foul of the new guidelines which also advise users to refrain from making “inappropriate” parody videos.
According to reports, users have criticised the move with one – Captain Source – telling the BBC that the algorithm used to determine “advertiser-friendly” content was far from perfect.
“Context around many words is incredibly important and needs to be addressed,” they said.
Others also pointed out that mainstream news networks posted inflammatory debates that could fall under “incendiary and demeaning”, and that music videos often push the boundaries of sexually-explicit content but still carry ads. “Why punish the little guy, but not the big networks?” asked user Eugenia Loli. “This is a double standard.”
Back in August, some YouTubers had complained that their videos had been flagged as “not advertiser-friendly” so were no longer earning ad revenue.
It started on March 25. I was on vacation with my wife, our first brief time away from our two kids. Besides setting context, the preceding sentence also exists to prove to the Internet that I had sex. Twice.
Take that, high school!
Anyway, I have two YouTube gaming channels (which really invalidates the sex thing). The bigger one, retsupurae (we sort of riff on things MST3K style) was having issues. Specifically, revenue just tanked out of nowhere. As you know from reading my previous Polygon article over and over again, CPM/ad revenue tends to be pretty volatile. I figured it would come back in a couple of days.
It didn’t. My smaller channel, slowbeef, which is more like a typical stream VOD/Let’s Play channel was totally fine … until April 7, when that channel’s revenue tanked as well. I started asking around and it seemed like people were either not affected, or affected in no pattern I could figure out. More and more people started to report a drop in revenue as time went on.
But this wasn’t the real beginning of this situation. Very large channels like h3h3productions tweeted that ads weren’t playing at all and even though they were still getting a ridiculously large number of views (like 700,000 daily), that would mean very little revenue. That happened as early as February.
That might have been ground zero.
YouTube started rolling out “ad-friendly” changes in February. Your videos could suddenly get flagged as “not friendly to advertisers” if they contained content deemed too offensive. But that was from YouTube’s side, it was only applied to individual videos and you could actually file a process that manually reviewed it if you felt like that was in error.
YouTube started giving advertisers themselves the options to opt out of videos with content that was “sensational or shocking” or had “profanity or rough language.”
Worryingly, these options had the parenthetical “(Beta)” next to them, meaning YouTube was using an algorithm for this, which is great. That never goes wrong. It also seemed like particular channels were getting blacklisted from ads entirely, but that seemed to be something behind-the-scenes and separate.
That’s half the story, and it’s a part that came from YouTube itself. In March or April, reportedly, advertisers started leaving the platform altogether. Ads weren’t showing up on even non-controversial channels and videos, and people were starting to note the dip. Now, for the part of an article everyone loves and absolutely increases the odds that you won’t get bored … graphs! Note that actual values were obscured, just to show trends.
The CPM stays the sameMichael Sawyer While the amount of advertising goes downMichael Sawyer
The first chart is CPM — the price the ad is sold for, and the second is “number of monetized playbacks” — how many video views had ads on them. If you multiply both numbers, you get how much revenue you make. I explain this in a bit more detail in another story I wrote about how our stuff is monetized.
The interesting thing was that CPM never went down. Ads remained just as lucrative as they were before all this — it’s the number of monetized playbacks that dropped. Confusingly, it shows that as advertisers were pulling out of YouTube, YouTube wasn’t lowering the prices of ad slots like you’d expect when demand goes down; they were just not running ads altogether!
Now for some sensationalist language: With the whole ecosystem in danger, could this be the end of one of the largest sources of online gaming media content?!
I’d like to explain how advertising on YouTube works as briefly as I can, before we get into this particular situation.
Suppose a company wants to sell a product and advertise on TV. They meet with a TV network ad salesperson and say, “We want to sell [product] to [demographic].” You know, Colgate toothpaste to men, aged 18 to 35, with a salary between $20,000 to $40,000 or some such. The network ad sales exec says “I have a show that matches that demographic, I have slots available on an upcoming episode and here’s the price for that slot.”
So maybe the Colgate exec buys a commercial on Jimmy Kimmel Live! after some negotiation. Everyone knows what that show is like, and it’s relatively easy to find out about how many people watch it per night. Both sides have the information they need to make a deal that helps everyone, at least in the broad strokes.
Here’s the issue, though. Most ad sales people have heard of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, or most TV shows in general, so TV advertising is easy in that regard. You know the tone of each show, and the vibe that’s going to be around your product’s ads. This is pretty important, no one wants to go from a segment about killing kittens to a jumpcut about how your toothpaste is the best.
But YouTube is a young person’s game and even hip ad execs are going to have trouble pitching some of the talent.
Pewdiepie. Smosh. Rooster Teeth. Markiplier. Chuggaconroy. Phil Kollar. These might as well have been nonsense words if you’re over the age of 40. You’re trying to convince an old person scratching their head over video interstitials that these are actually celebrities with audiences. Especially Phil Kollar.
So YouTube does “portfolio” ad sales. They don’t bother the product ad exec with specific shows or talent. They have a “portfolio.” They start with categories (called verticals), so if you want to appeal to a particular demographic, YouTube ad sales might recommend “someone in the gaming vertical” or “the comedy vertical,” etc. From there, it’s tiered-based on … well, something. Most likely views, the more audience reach and the higher it costs to advertise with them.
The point I’m trying to make is this: Advertisers don’t necessarily know where their ads will appear on YouTube. They’re being bundled together because no one goes over everyone’s channels to see the tone of their show or what they can expect to see right before or after an ad that features their product. And how could they possibly? There are hours and hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute!
Advertisers pick a category (vertical) and a pricing tier, and let YouTube do the rest in terms of actually placing the ad with a video.
This is part of the problem. When someone catches a big corporation’s brand on something “advertiser unfriendly,” all the advertisers freak out because they can’t be totally assured that their ads won’t appear on one of those videos. And without a “channel” or “network” (like NBC or ABC or Fox) to keep a close eye on what’s being produced, advertisers can get even skittish about stuff that YouTubers could potentially make. Meaning: Things are okay today, but what of tomorrow?
YouTubers used to say the best thing about the platform was that they could say whatever they wanted, and no one could say no. They weren’t held back due to their bosses or editors or advertising pressure. Now the other shoe has dropped. That all may still be true, but there is now advertising pressure. You suddenly won’t get advertisers anymore if you fall into the wrong category.
I do want to mention one last thing before we move on, regarding an opinion I’ve seen in social media: “Who cares about controversy and ad unfriendliness? If someone is controversial, but they get views, isn’t that all advertisers should care about? The raw numbers? Or shouldn’t it be?”
No.
At its most basic level, advertising sows familiarity. I inadvertently advertised Colgate in this article by mentioning it earlier. The next time you’re looking for toothpaste, Colgate might stand out. You won’t think about it, you won’t go “oh that’s the toothpaste that the guy writing the article mentioned,” but you might actually buy it without consciously knowing why. That’s like the basest thing an ad can do. And I do want to say no money has been passed between me and Colgate, although if Polygon runs Colgate ads on this story that’s on them.
Okay, now what if you’re going to buy car insurance? Did you think of Geico first? Is it because they have funny commercials? I mean, it’s ridiculous, and that should never sway you to buy auto insurance over say, Allstate or Farmer’s. But positive associations sell products. It’s why Coke and McDonald’s spend millions on commercials where people are just generally happy. They want you to have a good feeling in the back of your mind when you think of their brand. That way, if you’re at a store, even if you have no intention of buying Coke, you see it, and you buy it. Who doesn’t want to be happy?
I’m sure some of you reading this are saying, “Not me. Brands and ads don’t work on me. This is all hokum!” Kids say hokum, right? It’s coming back. Sure, it’s possible ads actually don’t work on you, but you’re in a very small segment of the population. Decades of studies and data bear it out; this psychological stuff works and companies pay a lot of money to get their advertising right. And they are very particular about their brands and reputations and commercials, because it influences sales. There are missteps, like Pepsi’s recent debacle, which actually led to protesters throwing cans of Pepsi at police.
If you show a Coca-Cola ad executive a YouTube video with their commercial in front of content with racial epithets or something, they will make it their primary mission that day to see those ads yanked. To get that brand away from that video.
And that’s what’s happening, and that’s what’s got YouTube scrambling to be “more ad-friendly.” The people bankrolling a lot of this have shown up, and they’re closing their wallets when they find out what some of us have been up to.
Whose Fault is This?
Let’s get it out of the way. Pewdiepie was involved in a controversy awhile back (and strangely, it wasn’t coming up with that name, Adpocalypse, sheesh). I don’t think this is his fault, and to very unsubtly move past other elephants in the room, I don’t think any single YouTuber or media outlet did it. It’s not like when Bill O’Reilly became toxic, advertisers said, “Forget it, we’re done with this whole television thing.”
If individual, high profile YouTubers get in trouble, YouTube does have an answer — they can cut that particular channel from a specific tier or vertical. And while it does hurt the site’s reputation when multiple events like this occur, they can still deal with it. But if you want to blame an individual, we can all agree that Eric Feinberg is a good villain here.
Wait, who?
Feinberg is an ad executive who has claimed to develop software to identify problematic content on YouTube, and he’s trying to strongarm Google into buying his solution. To that end, he’s been contacting advertisers whenever he identifies their ads played on videos they wouldn’t want their ads played against.
It’s unlikely, at least to me, that Google — a Silicon Valley giant whose portfolio includes the world’s most utilized search engine, a major email client developed by one of their developers on a whim, and of course the world’s largest video hosting service — is going to go for this. So I think Feinberg is in a stalemate that he isn’t willing to see, and individual folks on the YouTube platform get hurt by his actions.
But even if he hadn’t shown up, at some point, someone would’ve noticed all this. It’s something the platform would have to deal with at some point as it grew up. There is no one person acting in bad faith that brought the whole mess down on top of the rest of us who just want to play video games while talking for money and maybe a smidge of fame.
It’s also easy to blame YouTube itself for a lot of this. The fact that this stuff isn’t communicated to YouTubers until after the fact is a long-standing issue with the platform. But ask anyone who’s been doing Let’s Play videos for years about cost. They’ve probably looked into hosting the videos themselves only to balk at the price.
Video bandwidth isn’t cheap, and when you look at everything YouTube does — transcoding videos, indexing them for search, streaming in ads, and more — especially at the scale of hundreds of videos uploaded per day, and the cost gets stratospherically high. Many of us are stuck because there’s no low-cost solution that would provide the same level of service, nor the same number of viewers who may stumble onto our channel.
In that sense, it’s not a surprise that when the ad revenue gets threatened, YouTube is quick to roll out changes and try to fix it quickly without apprising the users of their platform. We’re relatively disposable, and in most cases completely reliant on YouTube for revenue.
Surviving the Adpocalypse (I hate that name so much)
This is all fine and well and good, but if you want to play games for a living or currently do, how do you make rent with all this going on?
Diversify!
What, I have to write more?
For starters, if you’ve got a gaming channel on YouTube, you should be supplementing revenue with a streaming site. Either a full partnership on Hitbox so you can get subscribers, or that new affiliate program on Twitch which lets you get bits. Or, um, just take donations on whatever streaming service.
Consider Patreon and figure out what you can do to incentivize people to support you on that platform. Network a bit and get a paid brand deal where you directly sponsor a game/product. This usually goes “if you can get X amount of views in Y amount of videos that feature our product, we’ll give you a lump sum.” Unlike ads which are volatile, with direct sponsorship/brand deals you know exactly how much money you’re getting. Provided you can get the requisite number of views.
You can merchandise through a service like Teespring, Zazzle or RedBubble. Get that funny meme printed on a coffee mug. Partner with that extremely gifted fan who is wasting their talent drawing stuff for you for some damn reason and split the money on t-shirt sales. Get in the game, here!
These changes could happen to any of the major players. Maybe there’s some court ruling that says broadcasting game footage violates the developer’s copyright and there’s a major blow to the whole ecosystem in whatever country you live in. Or technical difficulties start becoming rampant for whatever site you’re dependent on.
You could sit here and come up with scenarios all day if you really think about it. My point is just that major systemic shifts do happen beyond our control. Good, solid businesses have multiple revenue streams, assets on hand for difficult times. You also need a Plan B. And if you’re in business for yourself, a Plan C, D and E. Go through the alphabet. You’ll be happy you did.
When Does It End?
If you’re a YouTuber and you just want to know when your money will come back … jeez, read that previous section of the article I just wrote! The one above this one! Get that Plan B so you don’t have to wait on a third party to get back up and running.
But if you’re wondering: Is this the new normal or what? No one can predict the future, but here are my guesses.
It’s likely something will get better in the next couple of months. In fact with my luck, everything will revert back to normal the day after this article publishes, invalidating the whole thing and making me look like an idiot. If that happens, you’re welcome.
YouTube is working hard to fix this situation, since it’s losing a lot of money, too. If it’s not already addressed, it’s hard to imagine this going beyond November/December. That’s primo advertising season, right before the holidays. Even if the bigger corporations are still skittish about getting back in the water, this is a time of high demand and someone will pay the higher tier prices.
The only scenario in which this goes longer is if advertisers decide they’re not getting a good return on investment for online video advertisement in general. I don’t really think that’s a realistic scenario, as the future tends to move in one direction only.
The storm is here, we’re weathering it, it’s probably going to end at some point but we don’t know when for sure and regardless, if you’ve any interest in gaming for an audience full-time, you should probably be ready with a backup plan in case something like it happens again.
Speaking of which, I just checked my revenue for both channels. Hey Kuchera, can I get paid early for this? [Editor’s note: Payroll is handled at the same time for everyone.]
Michael Sawyer goes by the alias “slowbeef” and has been doing Let’s Plays since 2005, despite being incredibly unsuccessful at them. He is a self-described video game humorist and is officially way too old to being doing that. You can find him on Twitter, Twitch or YouTube.
Google’s recent claim that YouTube is the coolest brand in the eyes of teens and millennials looks shady in light of new survey data from BI Intelligence, which indicates that older age groups consistently perceive YouTube more positively than their younger peers do.
This is important because, for all the attention that millennials receive, baby boomers are still an attractive target market. They’re easily the wealthiest demographic in the US, representing about 50% of the country’s net household wealth, and will continue to be so until at least 2030, per Deloitte. Numbering close to 75 million people, they’re also the second-largest generation in the US, just slightly behind millennials, according to US Census Bureau estimates. For brands, the way this wealthy and populous demographic perceives YouTube can provide insight into how the platform can be better leveraged — and who they should be targeting.
Boomers are more inclined to believe that YouTube won’t serve them deceptive videos, while millennials are less sure about avoiding such content on the site. This means brands can reach older age groups on YouTube with more confidence that their campaigns will be viewed as upright and honest, so they needn’t worry as much about brand safety — or the risk they’ll be associated with content that detracts from their image. And considering baby boomers find YouTube ads less annoying than millennials do, these campaigns should be especially well received.
BI Intelligence
Older age groups are also more willing to share content on YouTube than younger folks. This indicates that, on YouTube, brands are more likely to reach an older audience that’s engaged and open to sharing content, creating an opening for uploaded videos to spread organically. There are countless examples of such successful commercials on YouTube — including Volvo’s “Epic Split” featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, viewed more than 86 million times; Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches,” with nearly 68 million views; and the legendary Dollar Shave Club commercial, which introduced the brand to millions worldwide, and eventually led to the company’s $1 billion sale to Unilever.
BI Intelligence
Although YouTube ranked dead last for consumer safety in BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey, boomers haven’t abandoned the video site. In fact, the affinity older age groups have for YouTube makes them far more likely than younger generations to actively participate and engage with content on the platform. By targeting this mature demographic on YouTube, companies may elicit more responses to their videos and campaigns, generating conversations around their brands.
BI Intelligence
BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey examines consumers’ perception of major social platforms. It rates Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn on security, community, user experience, and content authenticity and shareability to help brands and marketers make informed decisions about what platforms to spend their marketing and branding dollars on. The full report will be available through BI Intelligence in May.
Google parent Alphabet seems to have survived an advertising controversy basically unscathed, posting strong Q1 results that were driven in large part by advertising on mobile and—you guessed it—YouTube.
On Thursday, Alphabet reported that its first-quarter revenue was up 22% year over year.
“Given the extent of the YouTube ad boycott in Q1, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see a dent in Google’s revenue for the quarter,” said eMarketer analyst Paul Verna. “However, it’s important to put this in perspective. YouTube accounts for about 10% of Google’s net ad revenues, and only a small portion that YouTube inventory was affected.”
In addition, Verna said, YouTube has taken steps to address advertisers’ concerns, so it’s likely that many companies that took a pause from the platform will eventually return. “Barring a new controversy, the events of the past quarter don’t seem like they’ll have a lasting effect on Google’s business.”
Google has been planning stricter ad safeguards since the incident to prevent it from happening again. And it’s likely the search giant will continue to contain and address YouTube’s issues in order to maintain growth expectations for the year.
eMarketer estimates that YouTube had 180.1 million US users in 2016. The US user base isn’t expected to grow much—growth will be just 3.2% this year, eMarketer estimates—but that reflects the fact that it is at near saturation levels: eMarketer estimates that nearly 85% of digital video viewers are YouTube viewers. And among users of OTT services, YouTube is essentially at true saturation—over 95%.
“We have taken [the ad controversy] pretty seriously and we’re taking significant steps,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Thursday’s earnings call. “We’ve brought technical solutions in place, like machine learning. We are in early days, but as machine learning gets better, we can do this even better. Overall, I’m pretty confident in the way we’ve made progress. It’s super important to us that the ecosystem works well, it matters for advertisers and content makers, we take it seriously. Advertisers have seen the improvements we’ve made, our conversations with them has been positive. I’m optimistic.”
There’s no question that YouTube is under public scrutiny after large, global brands recently halted campaigns on the platform because ads were showing up next to offensive content. The boycott prompted YouTube to roll out improved tools for advertisers to help them better control where their ads land and maximize brand protection. But YouTube’s lack of policing hasn’t just alienated brands, it’s put a dent in consumer trust as well.
YouTube ranked dead last for consumer safety in BI Intelligence’s 2017 Digital Trust survey. Only 4% of survey respondents feel that YouTube is the safest platform to participate in or post on, making it by far the least chosen option. Even Twitter, with its sluggish user growth, abusive trolling accounts, and generally lukewarm outlook from analysts, is viewed as safer.
While brands can’t control the nature of trolls or the prevalence of offensive content, they can decide to dedicate ad dollars to environments where users feel safe engaging and sharing content. This is especially true if a brand wants its target audience to actively participate by commenting on a post, which can increase brand affinity and loyalty, encourage positive interactions with customers, and even spark a viral conversation.
BI Intelligence
Even though YouTube has some of the most annoying ads in the industry, and people are unlikely to post comments, it’s still a top destination for consumers to watch videos. Just don’t ask users to do much more than leisurely viewing, since that’s what YouTube is for. The platform isn’t well suited for sharing, which makes sense — it’s a video platform, not a social network. Users are more likely to copy and paste a link from YouTube and share it on Facebook. In fact, social platforms play a tremendous role in helping YouTube’s massively popular videos go viral.
BI Intelligence
This means that on YouTube, you’re buying reach, not clicks. Brands looking to drive conversions to sales through clicks, such as e-commerce companies, are likely to do better where users are more inclined to post and share content, like on Facebook. YouTube, with its wide yet passive audience, is best positioned for brand advertisers that want to maximize eyeballs.
BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey examines consumers’ perception of major social platforms. It rates Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn on security, community, user experience, and content authenticity and shareability to help brands and marketers make informed decisions about what platforms to spend their marketing and branding dollars on. The full report will be available through BI Intelligence in May.
New research reveals that 39% of U.S. broadband households visit a video sharing site like YouTube at least once a week. In total, 59% of broadband households visit an online video site on a regular basis.
“User-generated video from sites like YouTube skew to young consumers,” said Glenn Hower, Senior Analyst at Parks Associates. “Consumers 18-24 go to a video sharing site 13 days per month on average. They also use a video chat app like Snapchat an average of nearly 11 days in one month. The TV is still the most-used device for watching video content, but increased usage of secondary devices and video apps is making a significant impact on how users, especially younger viewers, consume and perceive content.”
360 View: Digital Media & Connected Consumers shows live streaming on platforms like Periscope and Facebook Live is still in its early days. Currently 26% of households participate in live streaming activities, such as streaming video from their own device or watching video over a live streaming platform.
“Emerging content platforms are changing the way content creators tell visual stories,” Hower said. “Services like YouTube have given rise to video bloggers and sketch performers, who can interact with their audiences in a way that traditional media like film and television cannot allow. In addition, live streaming on platforms like Twitter’s Periscope or Facebook Live is raw and impromptu, which can come across as more ‘authentic’ compared to a recorded video that has been edited and perfected.”
360 View: Digital Media & Connected Consumers analyses trends in music and video consumption by platform, source, and content expenditure. It segments consumers based on their consumption habits.
Instagram continues its surge in generating advertiser interest while Facebook remains the dominant social platform. This is according to a first quarter survey of advertising agencies conducted by Strata.
The survey also found a continued multi-quarter decline in YouTube’s lead over Instagram, bringing the two within one point of each other in advertiser interest. 54% of agencies report plans to use YouTube against 53% for Instagram. Facebook remains entrenched in first place as 95% of agencies are interested in the platform. Twitter, which historically held third place in agency interest until the second quarter of 2016, continues its slide with interest from 37% of agencies, finding itself just 10% above fifth-placed LinkedIn.
The interest in these social platforms is reflected in agency spending, as well. 93% percent of agencies are currently spending money on Facebook, with 53% planning to spend on YouTube, and 49% planning on Instagram. The current spend lagging behind agency interest could indicate increased spend in the coming quarters.
More than half of agencies now plan to spend more than 5% of their overall advertising budgets on social media, with 22% allocating between 11-25% of their budgets on social, compared to 18% in 4Q16. The increase in budget for paid social coincides with the proliferation of live streaming tools, such as Facebook Live and Snapchat Live as 42% of agencies report that clients were interested in these innovations for their campaigns.
“Though Facebook has remained the dominant player in the social media space, the gradual shifts in focus to other platforms has been interesting to watch. There’s always been a premium on live, so it’s not surprising that agencies have an interest in exploring Facebook Live, Snapchat’s Spectacles, and Instagram’s Stories,” said Judd Rubin, senior vice president at Strata.
When agencies were asked which form of media they prioritised the most, 24% reported that digital video was their primary focus. Although that leaves digital video in second, behind local TV and cable at 36%, the interest in digital video has seen a 351% increase over the past year.
The rise in interest in digital video may be surprising in light of the fact that agencies appear split on the effectiveness of digital video. Twenty-five percent feel that it can be as effective as traditional TV, but 33% feel it isn’t, and 42% are unsure. When asked more broadly about perceived ROI from digital video, over 50% felt fairly confident that they were getting good value for their money. Forty-one percent noted they were unsure, and only 9% of agencies felt they were not getting a strong ROI.
Facebook and YouTube are unquestionably two of the world’s most popular digital platforms. And with such large audiences up for grabs, it’s no wonder that advertisers are pouring funds into both businesses: Facebook generated close to $27 billion in advertising revenue in 2016, and though Google doesn’t break out YouTube sales, it credits the video platform as a crucial driver of its advertising revenue, which topped $79 billion last year.
Unfortunately for brands, Facebook and YouTube serve up the most annoying ads, according to BI Intelligence’s 2017 Digital Trust survey. In a virtual tie, ads on Facebook and YouTube were deemed the most irksome by 45% and 43% of the survey’s 1,740 respondents, respectively. Twitter garnered just 6% of the vote, followed by Instagram and Snapchat at 3%, and LinkedIn at 1%.
BI Intelligence
It’s not surprising that these two platforms are reputed to have the most annoying ads. Of the platforms included in the survey, Facebook and YouTube are the top two destinations of digital time spent in the US, according to comScore. People may be more sensitive to ads on Facebook and YouTube simply because they spend more time, and therefore see more ads, on these sites. And because Facebook and YouTube are relatively mature social platforms, they likely serve ads with greater and more noticeable frequency.
Millennials and baby boomers are divided on which platform serves the worst ads. Their preferences are inversely related by age group: Older survey respondents like YouTube ads more than Facebook ads, and vice versa for younger respondents. The familiarity that older people have with traditional TV may explain their tolerance for YouTube ads, which consist of pre- and mid-roll ads that resemble ad interruptions in linear programming.
BI Intelligence
These results point to a pressing need to improve advertising on both Facebook and YouTube. For its part, Facebook has said it’s curbing growth in its ad load — or the ratio of ads to organic posts. YouTube was similarly mindful when it scrapped its unskippable 30-second ad format in February. However, the onus to improve the ad experience shouldn’t be entirely on platforms. Brand advertisers also need to create quality ads that provide pleasurable viewing experiences. The reality is, the campaigns they’re running on the most popular platforms — in which they’re investing the most money, to reach the widest audiences — aren’t resonating.
BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey examines consumers’ perception of major social platforms. It rates Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn on security, community, user experience, and content authenticity and shareability to help brands and marketers make informed decisions about what platforms to spend their marketing and branding dollars on. The full report will be available through BI Intelligence in May.
