Sep 07
17
Q. When is an ad not an ad?
A. When it is posted on YouTube.*
* When I say YouTube I am also referring to all similar sites as well.
I had this thought a little while ago when trying to explain the difference between an ad on TV and the same ad on YouTube. In my opinion they are very, very different beasts because of how they are found.
A TV ad is commonly found in the following ways:
- Interrupts viewing of a live broadcast
- Caught like a dolphin in a tuna net when I am trying to tape/PVR/TiVo something else
- Featured on a director reel, agency portfolio or award show
The same ad on YouTube is commonly found in these ways:
- Searched for specifically
- Referred/Linked by someone else (blog, Word of Mouth, video chart, etc.)
- Comes up in a YouTube content ranking (most viewed/rated/commented) over a certain time period
Those are very different ways of accessing an advertisement. In fact, the first two points on accessing a TV ad are unwanted (or at least unasked for) ways of receiving ads, whereas the third is requested as is all the listed YouTube methods. The third one is the key here, when looking at an award’s reel you are not really looking at ads anymore, but watching a pre-selected series of content items for entertainment or possibly marketing research, etc. At that point the ad has been re-purposed and become something different.
What I am trying to say here is that an ad posted on YouTube is also something different than when the same ad is on TV. When an ad is requested or referred by a trusted source it ceases to be an ad as we know it and becomes content.
The implications of this are potentially sweeping, because people tend to like content and hate ads. In fact they will freely watch the Cannes Advertising Festival winners, a TV show about the world’s funniest ads, happily watch an ad when their buddy points them to it or even read advertising blogs. At any point that someone actually wants to see an ad, it becomes content to them.
Furthermore, out of 100 people “exposed” to an ad by watching a TV program what tiny fraction are actually watching the ad in any meaningful way and haven’t gone to the can, made a sandwich or flipped the channel? Contrast that with the views on YouTube of people actually watching the content. Sure some will abandon the content before it is finished, but in most cases I suspect they at least tried to watch it and were turned off for some reason.
So along the lines of Mitch Joel’s pithy “Content is Media”, I say that “An ad desired is no longer an ad, but becomes content.”
[tags] video, advertising, YouTube, webwalker, mitch joel [/tag]
