Mick’s Mumble
#Adpocolypse
I’m sure we are all familiar with the little blunder Google had with ad placement on YouTube a couple weeks back? But if you live in a box (like this guy), some credible brands had their ads being placed next to some “less-credible” video content.
This caused serious problems of course, as major brands and publishes (incl. BBC, McDonald’s, VW, etc.) pulled their ads and overall Google’s revenue dropped $750m in a day — no biggy!
More so, advertisers pulling their adspend on the platform meant YouTube creators saw their personal revenue crash… heavily. Hence, all the top YouTubers got really pissed off with YouTube too, and in an expected serendipitous fashion, these creators told YouTube off, saying they’re not going to use YouTube (as much) anymore… by creating a video rant on YouTube!
Kind of like a sweeter version of when your social-hungry, narcissistic, ass-hole friend posts a facebook status, “Hey, I’m not going to be on facebook for a while for a must-needed detox! Because human-contact is REAL and we need more REAL things in this world. Please don’t try contact me on here, as I will not reply blah blah blah.”
Whatever dude.
But hey, I get it.
Now Google having heat from both sides, they’ve got to fixing this issue and securing trust from brands and companies again, but less so the creators — why? Because brands are the ones who PAY money to Google, and the creators are the ones who get PAID from Google. (Suppose it’s better than Facebook who offer absolutely NOTHING, but anyway).
What Google has done is tighten their algorithms (which have always existed, but now they’re tight as you were in your teens) into classifying your video content, and while you may not be a terrorist, your videos may not be the Brady Bunch kinda stuff for all the beige-people of the planet to click on. These classification-buckets determine how often, when and what ads will be placed on your video content.
These buckets of classification are strict, and this is resulting in a further backlash as brands aren’t reaching their intended audiences, causing a few issues for brand strategists, and major creators aren’t getting their expected revenue because Unilever can’t sell AXE/LYNX deodorant on David Firth’s or PewdiePie’s channel, who is “a little” antisemitic, but also has 50million+ of the brand’s target market in his endless well of subscribers (disclaimer: this not a fact, that’s just a hypothetical example to illustrate the problem from both sides).
This whole issue has caused some major tension for creators, resulting in major contributors to stop producing content, encouraging others creators to stop funding the YouTube machine, or find other ways to make money to continue their passion for creating videos.
This includes paid subscription services like Patreon and partnering with individual brands who pay them directly (a Instagram-model kinda thing) — the constant here is YouTube not being exclusively relied on for monetary purposes.
Now YouTube rocks, we all love it, and is the go-to video-site for everyone, but it is concerning when your top creators are voicing to their million subs that they want a different solution or platform, and marketeers are complaining about fluctuated numbers (lies) and not reaching their intended audiences.
The lesson here, is listen to the people who use your product, and essentially make your product, otherwise shit gets (kinda) real.
My bet is Google make it all fine and dandy again, but not before other Valley mogul-tech-gurus give something a go to enjoy some of the pie.
