It’s now clear what the Google owners of YouTube plan to do with this unique brand. They spent a fortune — $165 billion for this destination site that had not even a million in revenue at the time. But YouTube was “the new idea” that became the winner as a destination site to view videos folks posted. It has become so popular that now even a thousand orange jumpsuit-clad Filipino prisoners are known worldwide for their precise choreographed moves to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
So, on average, You Tube has 132 million users per day, 5.5million every hour and more than 90,000 a minute. That’s the equivalent to the entire country of France and Great Britain combined and you can throw in Canada on top of that. That’s a lot of regular eyeballs. And in building a brand it’s about being a unique destination, building loyal visitors and delivering over and over again so customers come back. That’s how Google itself became the leader in search, how eBay created the online market place and why Yahoo groups dominates as a channel destination site. All this means loyal and satisfied users = eyeballs = advertising value.
Now it’s time for Google to monetize the YouTube brand. They are now planning to run small transparent ads at the bottom of videos posted. The videos themselves will not be ads or promotions but the ads appearing on them you can bet will focus on the demographics of the probable viewer. So for a small amount, $20/ 1000 impressions, Google hopes to cash in on this destination brand.
This makes total sense from a brand perspective. Value comes from loyalty and loyalty is about the experience you want to have. As long as YouTube visitors don’t feel like their experience is being infringed on they will come back for the next bizarre video. Maybe we’ll see George Bush dressed as a Valkyrie singing Wagner.
And Google will cash in on $132 billion in revenue- every day if they can pull it off.