YouTube’s branded content crackdown – what you need to know
In this guest post, Nick Fawbert highlights what YouTube’s rules for branded content mean for advertisers and multi-channel networks.
There was something of an inevitability about last week’s dismay over YouTube’s ‘clarification’ on the fees payable for branded content on YouTube’s channels. No commercially viable major platform is likely to offer free access to valuable audiences in perpetuity.
Red flags
We only need to review the last two years in social media to see that ‘Facebook Zero’ means that the multimillion strong fan bases we invested to create on Facebook Pages cannot now be reached on their timelines without additional investment in sponsored promotions.
Can I clarify – aware of the new requirement on third party content creators having to now disclose and be subjected to a fee as well as not being able to wedge an ad in to their content (and yay, ‘cos disclosure among bloggers/influencers on paid product content has been seen to be non-existent a lot of the time), but this article implies last week’s change applies to all branded content – eg. if a brand produces a video about how awesome their leather boots are, featuring an actor and a story around leather boots and publishes it on their YouTube channel?
Because if it’s the latter, that’s not what we’ve seen and is kinda of a big deal.
Or is the article implying the latter is a possibility, much like Facebook’s Page’s distribution evolution?
Some clarity on the clarity, please!
what confused said. This needs context and clarification.
I will echo the above sentiments; the link provided-
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/154235
Talks about paid product placement and requiring full disclosure of this so it doesn’t conflict with YouTube’s other advertising streams (in video ads, pre-roll etc) and lead to mixed messaging (Coca-cola advertising on content with Pepsi in etc). This is specifically with regards to content producers (supposedly) unaffiliated with brands.
It does not mention branded content, whereby the brand themselves have commissioned the work and will publish this through their own YT channel.
Please explain.
so you don’t get to pass your ads off as content.
good.