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YouTube is Losing Major Brands Due to Ad Placement

YouTube Advertising

YouTube is setting stricter restrictions on their video ads for 2018. The VP of display, video, and analytics, Paul Muret stated “2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and advertising partners”. Last year, YouTube took several steps to prevent ads from appearing on harmful content, but they knew it wasn’t enough. They wanted to set stricter restrictions to ensure ads running wouldn’t negatively impact their brand or core values.

YouTube’s Reasoning

If YouTube has already set up restrictions about ads appearing on videos, why are they taking it even further? Major brands were complaining that their ads were appearing on inappropriate videos with content they didn’t want to be associated with. Brand advertisements were appearing on extremist and racist videos, some even including misbehaved YouTube stars being irresponsible. More than 250 brands removed themselves from YouTube’s ad. services after finding their ads on extremist content. As more brands started to withdraw their spending on YouTube ads, YouTube began to make necessary changes.

The New Requirements

Last year, in able to be a part of the YouTube Partner Program, Google required users to have at least 10,000 views on their channel. Ads would not start appearing on users’ videos and YouTube channels wouldn’t start making money until this took place. However, this policy still created problems for YouTube. Now in order for a channel to carry ads, there must be at least 1,000 subscribers following the channel and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months. If a channel’s videos don’t meet these requirements, their videos won’t carry ads. YouTube will continue to use its “three-strikes rule”, which states Google will remove channels and accounts from YouTube if they’ve broken three community guideline violations. Muret promises they will closely monitor strikes, spam, and abuse flags to ensure these rules are taken seriously.

The Next Step

All ads will be manually reviewed and approved to meet internet friendly standards. Google is increasing the number of people reviewing content to as many as 100,000 people. YouTube is also giving advertisers more control over what pages and channels their ads appear on. This way brands can choose not to be associated with certain YouTube stars and channels if they don’t want to be.

It is important for companies to be aware where their ads are placed, and especially on YouTube, what videos are associated with their ads. For your company’s ad creations and placement strategies contact Brawn Media today.