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YouTube Attracts Marketers

  • USA Today, Wednesday, April 19, 2006 11:30 AM
YouTube has finally found a way to make money. Surprise! It's advertising. Nike, Warner Bros., MTV2 and Dimension Films are among the first set of marketers littering the site with commercial clips. Again, this is no surprise given the site's almost unbelievable growth. In December 3 million videos streamed daily. Today: 40 million. For those unfamiliar with YouTube, it's a huge destination for any kind of video content. Users can stream any video uploaded to the site and made available to the public. The most popular clips get shared virally and the number of plays can increase exponentially in a short period of time, which makes it particularly compelling for advertisers. USA Today spoke with a number of marketers, agencies and media buying firms, who highlighted the viral nature of the site and the low cost of entry: it's, um, free. For example, Nike recently uploaded a gritty clip of Brazil's FIFA World Football (soccer) Player of the Year Ronaldinho performing various moves with the ball. Since then, the clip has been watched 3 million times, as consumers e-mailed it to each other and posted it on their social networking profiles. YouTube won't disclose the financial details of this and other formal arrangements the site has with marketers, but those companies generally get preferential treatment on the home page, next to their brand image.

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