In news published this week, new YouTube tv ads are to be rolled out that will allow brands and businesses to benefit from what is a fast-growing segment of the market.
TV has been on a downward trend in recent years. The traditional format has struggled to compete with the highly personalised and customisable content that modern media consumers can access through internet services and video-sharing platforms.
While the traditional idea of watching TV, that is choosing between channels with predetermined programming, is on the decline, people are still using their TVs, just for slightly different purposes.
YouTube is currently the king of long-form video, with the platform boasting over 2 billion monthly active users across its desktop site and app versions.
According to a report published by Nielsen, YouTube is the most-watched streaming platform on TV in the US, reaching more than 150 million people, beating industry heavyweights like Netflix.
What this demonstrates is that, while viewing habits may have changed dramatically, people are still watching TV, and that YouTube is their choice source of content.
This presents a golden opportunity for digital brands and marketers to target consumers in a new way, through their TV sets rather than their mobiles or computers. Given the demographic split when it comes to TV usage, with older generations watching more TV than younger generations, marketers can also use this approach to target new consumer groups.
It would appear that YouTube is keenly aware of the potential here and has confirmed that it will be rolling out new options for YouTube tv ads. Now, members of the YouTube Select ad program will be able to run 30-second unskippable ads on YouTube-connected TVS.
With stats from YouTube suggesting that more than 70% of impressions are coming from TV viewers, these new YouTube TV ads offer marketers a fantastic opportunity to expand the scope and reach of their campaigns.
The company also announced plans to roll out advertising options for pause screens, which marketers can use to display brand advertising and information whenever a user pauses a YouTube video.
The news comes after YouTube reportedly began cracking down on adblock software last week, with some users receiving a prompt when using the platform encouraging them to turn off their adblocker.
