Of course we’ve known for five years that YouTube has changed virtual life as we know it. So long are the days where we ask someone “Did you see that last night?” and are out of luck if they didn’t. Within thirty seconds we are pulling a video up on our smartphones and watching it live. What has this meant for adverting? For one, viral videos are becoming household names. You are considered an outcast if you haven’t seen the latest YouTube hit and even the national news programs are showing some of YouTube’s greatest hits on occasion. But the real question is, have you ever noticed just how many of these hits were born out of advertisements?
Advertisers these days are creating ads with the virtual market in mind. They know how significant the replay of their ads on hubs such as YouTube can be and the jackpot it creates if they can produce a “viral ad.” Even the target audience has been geared towards the teenaged techies; take the new (and slightly bizarre) Old Spice campaign for example, adopting the group who are constantly browsing the latest YouTube hits.
So there has been a shift: no longer are people straying away from ads, they are searching for them, trying to find the funniest ones, sending them to their friends and watching them over and over again. Ads can’t be boring!!
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