YouTube Advertising

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Ever since the launch of YouTube in 2011, people have been increasingly watching more and more videos online. According to Google, “every month, more than 1 billion people watch more than 6 billion hours of YouTube video” – which means a lot of space for advertisers to use and take advantage of [Source]. YouTube has changed not just the way people can share and watch videos online, but also the way advertisements get shared online as well. Here is where ad video campaigns get to shine and get the most views.

Why do some videos have ads and some do not? Well, it could possibly depend on whose YouTube channel the ad is playing on or the specific video itself. For example, Robitussin chooses to display its ad on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which has over 12.6 million subscribers. The company takes advantage of the audience that The Tonight Show has in order to reach the most number of people. On top of that, if a video is successful, such as “Mad Lib Theater with Benedict Cumberbatch,” with its 7.7 million and counting views, then the advertisement will gain an even bigger audience. Although in this particular case, it may be an incredibly popular video because of the famous celebrity starred in it, in which case Robitussin is clever to choose this video to display its ad, where it can reach that celebrity’s fanbase.

Snapchat Filter Ads

According to Snapchat, the app “reaches 41% of all 18 to 34 year-olds in the United States” [Source]. So what can advertisers do with this information and utilize it for their benefit? They can use the app to target their ads to this specific audience. Through the use of filters on Snapchat, such as the one above from Taco Bell, Snapchat users can entertain themselves while simultaneously providing free advertisements to their Snapchat friends. It’s free in the sense that Snapchat users themselves aren’t paid to promote the advertisement when using the filter, unlike celebs like Kim K. who are paid in exchange for promoting a certain product.

Snapchat is an interesting social media platform to promote ads on. The platform itself sees advertising as a way of storytelling to friends and family. It’s the epitome of what Danesi sees as the fun and entertaining part of advertising. The ads on Snapchat are interactive, in which users can manipulate the filters onto their faces to create either pictures or videos to include the brand of the company. This can lead to the “sharing” aspect of social media that advertisers utilize to gain a bigger audience – once a user shares something like a post, or in this case a filter, then the friends and family who enjoy the filter will want to use it too and share it around with even more people, leading to greater success for the ad.

Celebrities and Ads

Just as there have always been celebrities in advertisements (what Danesi calls “real-life advertising”), with the growth of social media and celebrities having accounts on those sites as well, companies have changed to incorporate celebrity accounts into their advertising. Instead of celebrities coming to them, for example in the form of celeb appearances on TV ads, the company will have their product sent to celebrities to feature directly onto their account and straight to their followers.

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With over 88.7 million followers on Instagram, Kim Kardashian has a huge audience that advertisers can exploit, which is exactly what Sugar Bear Hair does in this particular post from Kim K. Sugar Bear Hair paid for Kim K. to feature their product, vitamins, on her Instagram account, despite the fact that she may or may not use the product herself. She endorses the product and gives it a sort of “credibility” to her followers, which in turn makes them want to buy the product for themselves. Here, we see celebrities being commoditized by companies, except in a different way by using social media. Rather than advertising on TV, where the audience might not know of or be a fan of the celebrity featured, on social media the audience willingly follows that celebrity, which gives the celeb, and therefore the advertisers, the power to influence what they see. It’s particular to note that the hashtag #ad is written in Kim K.’s post, to let her followers know when a product is being advertised. 

Behavior Targeting

“Companies know the power of social media and they are exploiting it.” – Essena O’Neill, former Instagram and Youtube celebrity [Source]

I open up Google and search up sites to find new glasses. A few days later, as I'm scrolling through my Facebook feed, I see a couple advertisements pop up to buy… you guessed it, new glasses. If you’d asked me a few years ago whether I would have noticed anything about this ad or whether I’d be able to connect it to something I’d searched up earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to give an answer. But now, with an awareness of what goes on between social media and advertising, it’s become obvious that companies have been able to use what people look up on search engines to target specific ads to them.

Behavior targeting, or what Danesi calls “search engine targeting,” is exactly this form of advertising. With the growth of the Internet and popular use of social media sites, companies have moved to advertising online and specifically on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, where millions of users are online every day. It’s an effective yet subtle form of marketing because more than likely, people will scroll past it not realizing the effort it took to get that one specific ad onto that specific person. And this is just one of many ways advertisers have optimized use of the Internet and social media.