The size of online video audiences has increased greatly in the last four years, with the online space threatening to overtake traditional TV viewing if the year on year growth continues in the same way.
Online audiences have grown by 174 per cent in the U.K. with 34 million people now watching online videos every month, and over 800 million unique users visiting YouTube worldwide each month. It is clear that this is a trend that is only going to continue to grow.
The Impact of YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and the fourth largest internet site. It is also the UK’s most popular place for watching online videos. On average, UK consumers watch 18 hours of online video each month and 5.3 of those hours are spent viewing YouTube – that’s more than double BBC IPlayer, ITV Player and 4OD put together.
When you consider that the average Channel 4 viewer watches little more than 5 hours each month and that nearly as many people watch YouTube every month as E4, More4, Dave and ITV3, then you realise that YouTube is becoming a worthy competitor for mainstream television.
What That Means for Advertisers
The number of people watching YouTube and the amount of time they spend viewing the channel demonstrates there is a huge untapped audience waiting to view your marketing campaigns.
Some people dismiss YouTube as something that children with no money watch, but they are wrong. More than 88 per cent of YouTube’s viewers are over 18, with 33 per cent being aged 28-34 and 55 per cent of their audience being 35 and over.
Add in the fact that 58 per cent of YouTube’s unique users are ABC1 and it is clear to see that the people using the site have a lot of expendable income that they could be spending on your products.
Another myth about YouTube is that it is just full of miscellaneous home-made videos, but again that is a misconception. YouTube actually offers a wide number of TV shows, music videos, specialist channels, magazine shows and popular content that is produced by the site’s approved partners.
There is also the more well-known user-generated content, but advertising is never displayed against this type of uncleared content.
This means that you can choose a suitable place for your advert. For example, a food company that would choose to advertise alongside Jamie Oliver’s shows on TV can pick from the most popular food shows on YouTube, while a perfume brand can opt for fashion magazine Grazia’s online videos instead of placing an advert in the middle of a popular show for woman.
ABC audits of YouTube are carried out so you can choose the channels that suit your campaign in the same way that you do when buying space in magazines, newspapers and on TV. YouTube also offers the added benefit of knowing who is watching what because 40 per cent of their users are always logged in when they watch – whether they are viewing at home online or away from the house on their iPads and phones.
You can also tailor your advertising strategy to suit your needs. YouTube allows you to target the demographic, category or specific shows. You can also choose to target all partner content, all premium partner content or go for a custom bundle.
Advertise On YouTube
With so many options available, you can always make sure that your marketing will be viewed by your target audience.
Marketing via online videos works in exactly the same way as the TV and print platforms that you are used to, but it opens up a whole new market for you.
We will explain further how marketing via YouTube can benefit your business in part two and part three of our report, so tune in next week.
Note:
- Source for 800 million unique users visiting YouTube worldwide each month http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics
- Any other figures not from the supplied documents are from http://www.barb.co.uk/
