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Youtube is used horribly by advertisers. Don't make a video ad that plays before the content that people can't wait to click Skip. Just make a video that's ente

Youtube is used horribly by advertisers. Don't make a video ad that plays before the content that people can't wait to click Skip. Just make a video that's entertaining/informative and post it to youtube. People will share it for free and watch it willingly.

amorphid 10y ago
I don't want to see ads. Period. In fact, I pay for YouTube Red & Google Play Music specifically to avoid ads. Ads suck.
arkades 10y ago
If it were trivial to make entertaining/informative ad copy, I imagine more ad copy would be.
sfifs 10y ago
I work at an advertiser. Most so called "viral" ads we've researched involve significant levels of paid impressions before they got to a "viralable" level. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Also it's significantly difficult to make a highly entertaining ad as well as convey your product benefits/superiority at the same time - strains creativity of the ad agencies though some are adapting faster to the online ad formats more than others. At the end of the day all those "emotional equities" that highly engaging and emotional ads convey have mainly a role in creating a positive image around your brand - making people actually buy is very difficult without actually conveying your product's value and benefits.
- fwn 10y ago
  Who would have thought that actually adding value to peoples lives is hard. Much harder than paying someone to force others to see something.
  - sfifs 10y ago
    Sarcasm aside, sadly, if you build it they will come doesn't particularly work. Say you're made a new flavor of ketchup. Your product tests show people love it much better than anything else in the market. Arguably you are adding value to those people's lives with it. Now it won't sell at all and recoup your investment and arguably actually add value to people's lives unless they know about it and try it - hence advertising.
- seppin 10y ago
  > There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You can't even pay to have people watch your ads anymore. Isn't this the death of the industry as we know it?
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  One of the wierd things about a network is that, no matter how much you scale it, there are always only ten "top ten" slots on it. (Or 100, or 1,000, or ...) Clearly, we're going to have to throw more resources at this problem to break a stubborn scaling bottleneck.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
You make it sound so easy. You should be in advertising so that you can show them how easy it is. The truth is good ads are hard to come up with and the ones that really strike gold go viral [1]. I'm content that I can at least skip them after 4 seconds. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA_An6LcWtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA_An6LcWtc

amorphid 10y ago

I don't want to see ads. Period. In fact, I pay for YouTube Red & Google Play Music specifically to avoid ads. Ads suck.

arkades 10y ago

If it were trivial to make entertaining/informative ad copy, I imagine more ad copy would be.

sfifs 10y ago

I work at an advertiser. Most so called "viral" ads we've researched involve significant levels of paid impressions before they got to a "viralable" level. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Also it's significantly difficult to make a highly entertaining ad as well as convey your product benefits/superiority at the same time - strains creativity of the ad agencies though some are adapting faster to the online ad formats more than others. At the end of the day all those "emotional equities" that highly engaging and emotional ads convey have mainly a role in creating a positive image around your brand - making people actually buy is very difficult without actually conveying your product's value and benefits.

fwn 10y ago
Who would have thought that actually adding value to peoples lives is hard. Much harder than paying someone to force others to see something.
- sfifs 10y ago
  Sarcasm aside, sadly, if you build it they will come doesn't particularly work. Say you're made a new flavor of ketchup. Your product tests show people love it much better than anything else in the market. Arguably you are adding value to those people's lives with it. Now it won't sell at all and recoup your investment and arguably actually add value to people's lives unless they know about it and try it - hence advertising.
seppin 10y ago
> There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You can't even pay to have people watch your ads anymore. Isn't this the death of the industry as we know it?
dredmorbius 10y ago
One of the wierd things about a network is that, no matter how much you scale it, there are always only ten "top ten" slots on it. (Or 100, or 1,000, or ...) Clearly, we're going to have to throw more resources at this problem to break a stubborn scaling bottleneck.

bitmapbrother 10y ago

You make it sound so easy. You should be in advertising so that you can show them how easy it is. The truth is good ads are hard to come up with and the ones that really strike gold go viral [1]. I'm content that I can at least skip them after 4 seconds. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA_An6LcWtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA_An6LcWtc