Why do companies advertise on YouTube when their ads are only used to annoy people into paid accounts? I never see anything, I am interested in.

  • slazer2au
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    1008 months ago

    Hot take time.

    Advertisements are not there for you to immediately buy something or even buy something in the next few days. Advertisements are there to associate a company with a product or service.

    If you see an advert for washing powder the advertisers are not expecting you to head to the store and get some, just next time you think you should try a different brand of powder a memory circuit fires off in your brain saying “what about Fab or Omo?”

    There was a show on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation years ago called The Gruen Transfer where advertisers would discuss each other’s ads and kinda pulls back the voodoo on advertising.

    • @JoBo@feddit.uk
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      78 months ago

      are not expecting you to head to the store and get some, just next time you think you should try a different brand of powder a memory circuit fires off in your brain saying “what about Fab or Omo?”

      That’s still secondary, I think. Advertising is mostly about getting the stores to stock it so that you can buy it.

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      58 months ago

      There is also a similar CBC show (and podcast) on the same topic by a long-time advertising industry insider.

      Under the influence by Terry O’Reilly.

    • @Etterra@lemmy.world
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      28 months ago

      Yeah some jackass I’m at once in marketing tried to explain it to me. I haven’t seen an ad in ages so I call bullshit. It’s all mostly psychobabble nonsense.

  • @simple@lemm.ee
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    288 months ago

    Because a ton of people are still influenced by ads, and even if they didn’t exist ads serve to keep the product/company in the public conscious. It keeps people talking about the product or informs people that the new movie/phone/whatever is coming out soon.

  • @ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    188 months ago

    The more a company spends on advertising, the more they sell. You might be annoyed by the ads, but somewhere someone pulled out their credit card watching the exact same thing.

    • @EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted
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      68 months ago

      So basically what you’re saying is that most of us have to be annoyed because a small percentage of viewers are fucking tools?

      Yep, that tracks…

      • exscape
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        148 months ago

        Ads work way better than you think. Perhaps the most important thing they do is to make you aware the brand exists, and to keep it in mind when you’re looking for a service/product. You’re way more likely to buy something you’ve heard of, even if it’s from ads.

        • @EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted
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          8 months ago

          Oh I’m aware. Hell, I just recently got convinced to buy something because of an ad. I’m not so arrogant that I think I’m above that. But I try to at least have my own mind about it (and usually am able to resist the siren’s call at that).

          (If you’re wondering, it was for a band. Shittily designed ad though as it didn’t say what band it was. Lol. The one ad of the year I get swayed by and I don’t even know what it was about. xD )

          • @meco03211@lemmy.world
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            38 months ago

            Kinda like the shitty YouTube ads that don’t mention anything identifiable in the first 5 seconds before I skip that shit. Thanks for the non-descript idyllic scene with absolutely no indication what your product is!

      • @Luke_Fartnocker@lemm.ee
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        28 months ago

        It’s the same way with telemarketing and scams. If they didn’t work, then they would go away. Obviously they are successful. That’s why people keep using them.

  • @_pete_@lemmy.world
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    98 months ago

    I’ve seen a few video games and movies that I’ve gone on to look into from YouTube ads.

    90% of them are total annoying bollocks though.

  • @adam_y@lemmy.world
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    48 months ago

    And the problem is, when those of you who aren’t susceptible to ads start blocking them, the service has to force a subscription model on everyone.

    At one point most things on the internet were free because of advertising.

    That’s free as in “free”. Our eyes were the cost.

    Older folk will remember the insane pop ups, the animated gif banners, misleading links… But ultimately it let anyone, no matter what monetary status, enjoy the same content.

    And now we pivot to a subscription based internet as traditional advertising falters. And then, the crazy thing that will happen is they will start advertising in the subscription services too.

    We’ll never escape, we can only keep running.

    • @anothermember@lemmy.zip
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      78 months ago

      I use a content-blocker to block ad-networks that track me. It was never about blocking ads, but taking a necessary security measure against being tracked. They could still put ads in videos, like on TV, that aren’t part of ad-networks and don’t invade privacy - but they don’t do that, they want to invade users’ privacy instead.

    • AlteredStateBlob
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      48 months ago

      I also remeber the plague of malvertising with drive by viruses and Trojans. I haven’t had a single positive virus on my systems in over a decade thanks to adblockers.

      It’s insane, because the internet looked entirely different as well. Not these monolithic sites but scattered around.

    • @adam_y@lemmy.world
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      18 months ago

      I’m not sure why I got downvoted for saying that. I’m not anti-ad blocking, just describing the economics of it all.

      But I have been thinking about the situation, specifically with YouTube.

      I think that the problem is that the adverts, as they are, interrupt the content, whereas they should be part of the platform instead.

      Like old Google search results, you could be offered sponsored content that you can choose to engage with.

      That would force companies to come up with things that people want to watch, and would effectively kickstart the creativity in advertising again, rather than the brute force interruption.

      Also, the branding of the platform and content. Shows “sponsored” by a company don’t need to run a two minute advert within a video to gain association. A logo, brand awareness, links and a decent service should be enough for them to get value in backing creators…

  • Margot Robbie
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    28 months ago

    Simple: it’s a really big video sharing website, so it’s the logical place for us to put movie trailers on there.