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YouTube's Dilemma: Becoming Profitable Without Losing Users
In an interview in today's Wall Street Journal, YouTube chief marketing officer Suzie Reider discusses the company's strategies for placing ads on a site whose users are largely turned off by "hard-sell" marketing. The danger is that with too many ad spots the site will start appearing "too corporate" and send its "fickle" audience running for the exits.
Reider describes how some of their ad placements, like the "Participatory Video Ad" on the homepage are becoming increasingly popular with marketers, as well as how many marketers are trying to create an integrated experience using YouTube's unique qualities.
WSJ: Some marketers say they aren't looking to simply put advertising on the site. They really want to join the community and get people talking about their brand. How are you building that form of promotion?
Reider: They want integrated, out of the box, interesting, engaging experiences on Web sites where they feel like they are really interacting with the user. So the programs that we are looking to build on YouTube will try to do that for them. ...They should be thinking about all of the little threads of content that they can weave through the site in order to engage all kinds of users in all kinds of areas of the site because there is so much that goes on here in any given day.