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The real question to be asking is, why don’t you see more ads for big time things? The most effective advertising is for cars, beverages, etc. Are you seeing th

The real question to be asking is, why don’t you see more ads for big time things? The most effective advertising is for cars, beverages, etc. Are you seeing those ads on YouTube? The ads you see tell you a lot about the effectiveness of the ads. Or at least they tell you about how effective ad-buyers perceive the ads to be. If ad buyers thought that YouTube ads actually worked, you would see big time companies buying YouTube ads. You would also see fewer ads selling at higher prices. The fact that YouTube ads are so garbage is an indicator that their perceived effectiveness is terrible. Therefore the ads have to be sold for low prices. And low priced ads bring in all sorts of low budget scams who couldn’t afford to buy better placements. Also, a lot of these ads, despite being obvious scams, are not actually illegal in a lot of places. If the law doesn’t force a company like Google to turn away dollars, they aren’t going to turn them away. Also, I think this difference in ads at least partially explains some of the different attitudes of younger generations. For example, young people do not seem to be as in love with cars as older generations. The anti-car pro-environment movement is getting strong. You have to think that young people watching YouTube instead of broadcast TV, and not being inundated with car ads, has something to do with that. There’s a lot more going on here beneath the surface.

Nextgrid 3y ago
To be fair I think you are reading too much into it. If you fall into the right targeting criteria you will see ads for cars and such. But you are right that there's also a lot of absolute garbage out there that would never fly on any reputable TV channel/print magazine. > young people do not seem to be as in love with cars I think lower-end cars approaching $20k might also have something to do with it.
mdip 3y ago
You make several good points here ... if I'm a Coke, a Ford/GM or a candidate for public office, competing for eyeballs with crypto-/weight-loss-/online casino scams is probably not something I want to be associated with. I know I've seen some legitimate brands (in the past, anyway) on YouTube when I stroll into my family room and see my son watching some guy narrate himself playing video games. Considering, first, that most of the content he's watching isn't great to begin with -- and as a brand I may not want my product being run along side any of that, either -- the other ads I'd be sharing time with make me surprised there's any non-vice/non-scam brands willing to market via those channels.

Nextgrid 3y ago

To be fair I think you are reading too much into it. If you fall into the right targeting criteria you will see ads for cars and such. But you are right that there's also a lot of absolute garbage out there that would never fly on any reputable TV channel/print magazine. > young people do not seem to be as in love with cars I think lower-end cars approaching $20k might also have something to do with it.

mdip 3y ago

You make several good points here ... if I'm a Coke, a Ford/GM or a candidate for public office, competing for eyeballs with crypto-/weight-loss-/online casino scams is probably not something I want to be associated with. I know I've seen some legitimate brands (in the past, anyway) on YouTube when I stroll into my family room and see my son watching some guy narrate himself playing video games. Considering, first, that most of the content he's watching isn't great to begin with -- and as a brand I may not want my product being run along side any of that, either -- the other ads I'd be sharing time with make me surprised there's any non-vice/non-scam brands willing to market via those channels.