This Thesis Has Been Approved by the Honors

Home , Blame the Hero, Casey Neistat, Chad Hurley, Content ID (system), David Dobrik, Google Video

This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Business Administration

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Professor Daniel R. Dahlen Professor, Marketing Thesis Adviser

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Dr. Raymond Frost Director of Studies, Business Administration

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Dr. Cary Roberts Frith Dean, Honors Tutorial College

1 #Ad: How YouTube Went From “Broadcast Yourself” to Broadcast Brands and

Why It Matters

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A Thesis

Presented to

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Business Administration

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Allyson Lagiovane

May 2018

2 Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Dan Dahlen. Not only has he been an invaluable resource in support of this project, he has been a great mentor to me throughout these past two years of working together. I could not be more thankful for the guidance and encouragement he has given me, both academically and professionally.

A special thank you to those that participated in the in-depth interviews portion of my research, including Chris Ferrel, Bo Reisinger, Danny Veech, Cheryl Harrison, Nina

Bressau, and Tracey McCormack. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to speak with me and share your insight. As well, thank you to those students that participated in the online survey and contributed to my research. This research wouldn’t have been possible without your support.

I could not be more thankful for the Honors Tutorial College and the opportunities that they have provided to me throughout my undergraduate career. Words can’t express how grateful I am to be a part of this program and to be a part of a group of amazing people that continuously push me to work harder and follow my passions.

And as always, a huge thank you to my family and friends for their unwavering support throughout the process of writing my thesis. Thank you for helping me through the struggles and being there to celebrate my successes. I am the person that I am today because of you.

3 Table of Contents

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………….... 5 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...... 6 Literature Review The Birth of YouTube ……………………………………………………. 8 YouTube Today …………………………………………………………... 10 YouTube Applications ……………………………………………………. 12 Advertising on YouTube …………………………………………………. 15 Rise of the YouTuber ……………………………………………………... 18 Competitive Landscape …………………………………………………... 20 Challenges for YouTube’s Future ……………………………………….. 23 Research Approach ………………………………………………………………. 26 Study 1: Impact of YouTube on Businesses Research question ………………………………………………………… 26 Methodology ………………………………………………………………. 26 Results and Discussion …………………………………………………… 29 Limitations ………………………………………………………………… 38 Study 2: Impact of YouTube on Millennials Research question ………………………………………………………… 39 Methodology ………………………………………………………………. 39 Results and Discussion …………………………………………………… 40 Limitations ………………………………………………………………… 46 Recommendations & Future Research ………………………………………….. 47 Afterword: My Journey ………………………………………………………….. 49 Appendices ……………………………………………………………………...... Appendix A: Interview Script ……………………………………………. 51 Appendix B: Chris Ferrel Interview Transcription ……………………. 52 Appendix C: Danny Veech Interview Transcription …………………... 59 Appendix D: Bo Reisinger Interview Transcription …………………… 64 Appendix E: Cheryl Harrison Interview Transcription ……………….. 68 Appendix F: Tracey McCormack Interview Transcription …………… 71 Appendix G: Nina Bressau Interview Transcription …………………... 76 Appendix H: Study 2 Survey Results ……………………………………. 78 References …………………………………………………………………………. 95

4 Abstract

YouTube has grown from a platform to merely host video content into a brand powerhouse growing revenue for large corporations and independent content creators.

This thesis analyzes previous literature to understand the growth and development of

YouTube and where YouTube stands in the current marketplace. This thesis also combines both qualitative and quantitative primary research methods in order to understand how YouTube has impacted business strategy and millennial attitudes.

Specifically, the study aims to answer two major questions:

1. How do advertising professionals view the importance of utilizing

YouTube for their company, how do they approach ads and sponsored

content, and what are the implications of that?

2. How do college-aged millennials interact with YouTube and view

sponsored content, and what are the implications of that?

Each research question was answered through different research methods. The first question was explored through in-depth interviews, specifically with advertising and marketing professionals. The second question was answered through an online survey geared specifically to college-aged millennials at Ohio University.

The only way to leverage video content as a medium for growth in business is to gain a well-rounded understanding of how it works, how people interact with it on a daily basis, and how it affects consumer perceptions. By gaining insight into the YouTube community and the rise in sponsored and advertised content, marketers have the opportunity to tap into a new and growing trend to access a loyal audience.

5 Introduction

YouTube has emerged as the second most viewed website around the globe, falling closely behind its parent company, Google. Video content grew so popular that

Google acquired YouTube in 2006, just one year after YouTube was founded. Today, over 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and almost 5 billion videos are being watched each day.

YouTube introduced the slogan “Broadcast Yourself” as a way to encourage the everyday person to put their life on film and host it on YouTube. Since the first video posted by one of YouTube’s founder, titled “Me at the Zoo,” billions of hours have been shared about makeup, gaming, technology trends, and everything in between. Monetizing content was implemented in 2007, and brands have taken advantage of the site’s profitability by partnering with popular influencers to access their audiences. The emergence of user-generated content, specifically through videos on YouTube, has drastically changed the way marketers advertise to their audiences.

Today, YouTube’s landscape could be better explained as “Broadcast Brands,” as companies and creators are tapping into the world of YouTube advertising and sponsored content. Little research has been published in understanding the implications of brand- sponsored content and brand strategy specifically through YouTube. With such information, brands will more effectively be able to leverage YouTube as a way to authentically engage with users to foster a symbiotic relationship between the brand, the content creator, and the audience.

The primary goal of this thesis was to gain a well-rounded understanding of

YouTube and how it is viewed in the marketplace. This thesis seeks to delve into

6 literature surrounding YouTube’s history, current landscape, and competitors in order to understand where it stands in the market. This thesis also seeks to pair this understanding with results derived from primary research. The primary research conducted draws conclusions from YouTube’s two main user sets – businesses and millennials. By pairing key points derived from secondary literature with primary research trends about how users interact with YouTube, advertisers and business professionals can better understand how to leverage the platform. As well, YouTube, and ultimately Google, can tap into the findings about their user sets to understand how the market is viewing the platform, leverage its strengths, and develop tactics to address challenges the platform currently faces.

7 Literature Review

The Birth of YouTube

YouTube began in 2005 when three former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley,

Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, decided to develop a dating website (Holownia, 2017).

While the idea of a dating site didn’t stick, YouTube evolved into a place where anyone could go to share video content. On April 23, 2005, Karim uploaded YouTube’s first video, titled ‘Me at the Zoo.’ The 19-second clip featured Karim at the San Diego Zoo with elephants in the background and it has since reached over 47 million views (Dickey,

2013). This pales in comparison, however, to some of YouTube’s most popular videos to date.

Soon after its inception, YouTube’s first video hit one million views in September

2005. The video was a Nike advertisement that featured the famous Brazilian soccer player, Ronaldinho. This led to a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in

November, which allowed YouTube to expand the bandwidth and launch out of beta mode (Holownia, 2017). YouTube launched its Content Verification Program (Content

ID) in February of 2006 after NBC called for the removal of a video that featured a

Saturday Night Live skit. This program would go on to be instrumental in taking down videos posted to the site that infringed on copyrights. It also led to a partnership with

NBC in which YouTube promoted the fall TV lineup later that year.

YouTube continued growing, and Google decided to acquire the site for $1.65 billion in October of 2006. According to Google at the time, it was “the next step in the evolution of the Internet” (Dickey, 2013). Following Google’s acquisition, YouTube launched its Partner Program in May of 2007 in order for content creators to get paid for

8 their viral videos. According to the New York Times in 2008, roughly one year after the program launched, creators were earning up to six-figure incomes solely from YouTube

(Dickey, 2013).

YouTube reached another milestone in July of 2007 when CNN hosted the presidential debate for the 2008 election on the site. It was the first time in history that user-generated content was incorporated into a presidential debate when citizens were able to submit video questions. Very quickly, Google learned that YouTube could start generating more revenue. The first advertising was rolled out on YouTube in August of

2007 in the form of semi-transparent banner ads appearing on the lower fifth of videos

(Frommer, 2012). Advertising has since become an integral part of not only YouTube’s growth, but growth for brands that choose to advertise through the site.

In April of 2011, YouTube launched its “Live” feature, allowing creators to host livestreams and interact with users. In March of that same year, YouTube launched their first original channels, with Google collectively paying creators over $100 million to develop video content solely for YouTube (Dickey, 2013). History was made yet again when YouTube hosted livestreams of the summer Olympics in July 2012. Users could view the content from any medium – mobile, computer, or tablet. In 2012 alone, users watched over 4 billion hours of video each month (Dickey, 2013).

Since then, YouTube has grown to be the second-most visited site just behind

Google (Gupta, 2016). Many argue that YouTube would not be where it is today without the support from Google (Dehghani, 2016). Today, the majority of YouTube’s users can't even recall a time when YouTube did not exist. It has become an integral part of everyday life that society has learned to rely on.

9 YouTube Today

On October 9, 2006, YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen posted a video to YouTube titled “A Message from Chad and Steve” in which they addressed the

Google acquisition. The two emphasized how important the acquisition was and how excited they were for the development of the site moving forward. Hurley said it best,

“We’re going to stay committed to developing the best service for you, developing the most innovative service and tools and technologies so you can keep having fun on our site… And this is great, two kings have gotten together and we’re going to be able to provide you an even better service and build even more innovative features for you”

(YouTube Spotlight, 2006).

Google’s acquisition has catapulted YouTube to the top, and the two powerhouse brands have worked closely to drive YouTube engagement and success. Today, there are over one billion users on YouTube, accounting for over one-third of the internet

(“YouTube for Press,” 2017). As YouTube as grown, more companies have sought increased regulations. To protect larger, copyright-holding companies, YouTube’s

Content ID program was implemented in 2006 and has grown to include over 8,000 partners. These partners include network broadcasters, movie studios, and record labels, and collectively have claimed over 400 million videos (“YouTube for Press,” 2017). The

Content ID program works to remove

In general, 18-34-year-olds are watching video content on YouTube the most, with mobile viewing alone reaching more people in this age group than any television network (Dumont, 2013). Mobile viewing accounts for over half of YouTube’s views, with over one billion hours of content watched daily (“YouTube for Press,” 2017).

10 YouTube has worked to be more accessible across the nation, and currently operates in

88 countries and offers content in over 76 different languages. This reach alone accounts for 95% of the internet’s population (“YouTube for Press,” 2017). Today, the most watched video on YouTube is the Despacito music video featuring Luis Fonsi and Daddy

Yankee, with over 4.8 billion views (Dickey, 2013). According to Fonsi, “Breaking the record for most viewed video of all time on YouTube is truly incredible, not only for me but for Latin music and our culture…Working with a platform like YouTube has allowed our song to reach audiences all over the world, something that just a decade ago was nearly impossible” (YouTube, 2017).

YouTube Applications

YouTube has incorporated many different applications to grow their reach and compete in the market. In 2015, YouTube implemented YouTube Music, a free app featuring music in a radio station format similar to that of Pandora. The YouTube Music app clearly labels official music videos, fan made videos, and audio-only results (Mitroff,

2015). The application takes your music interests into consideration and filters out non- musical results in the search. While the app is free, listening to music through the app requires an internet connection.

YouTube also offers an application specifically for “gamers,” called YouTube

Gaming. This application appeals to the “let’s play” video trend in which gamers record their gaming experience and share it on YouTube (Mitroff, 2015). YouTube gaming is offered both on a unique web address and as a free application in the app store. Users are able to search through both live and on-demand gaming content without filtering through non-gaming videos on YouTube’s home site (Andronico, 2016). YouTube Gaming also

11 offers users the opportunity to subscribe to gamers specifically as well as following specific gaming brands to follow along with related uploads (Andronico, 2016). The livestreaming capabilities of YouTube Gaming allows users to interact in real-time with the broadcaster as well as members of the audience viewing the live-stream (Mitroff, 2015).

There is also a YouTube app that exists specifically for kids, appropriately called

YouTube Kids. YouTube Kids blocks all YouTube content that is not considered “kid friendly” and is organized into sections by shows, music sing-alongs, educational videos, and an explore page that includes everything (Mitroff, 2015). Parents prefer to utilize

YouTube Kids rather than its parent app to keep their children occupied and distracted in a safe and controlled environment. The app also allows parents to turn off the search tool and allows kids to only browse what is featured. There are also settings in which parents must enter a PIN to make any changes to a setting, as well as a timer that can be set to limit a child’s viewing between 1-120 minutes (Mitroff, 2015).

In order to expand into markets that have minimal internet access, YouTube introduced YouTube Go in 2016. YouTube Go is available in 130 countries, including

Afghanistan, Brazil, Colombia, Ethopia, Mexico, and Turkey (Roettgers, 2018).

International users can download videos on the app when they have wifi access in order to watch the videos later when their internet connection may be slower. Users can also preview videos before downloading them and have the option to choose the video quality that it is downloaded in when the connection is slower (Perez, 2018). There is also an option for users to swap videos offline with other people that have the app in order to view more content. For those that have enough bandwidth, YouTube videos can be streamed as they normally would (Roettgers, 2018). YouTube Go will allow a larger

12 number of users across the globe, specifically in emerging markets, to watch and share content through YouTube (Perez, 2018).

To compete with giants like Hulu and Netflix, YouTube decided to expand to offer original content in the form of a subscription service called YouTube Red.

Originally, the service was created as YouTube Music Key, an app to stream and share music and music videos ad-free (Mitroff, 2017). In 2015, it was updated and launched as

YouTube Red and the features offer more than just music. Today, for a fee of $9.99 per month, YouTube Red users have the ability to watch all content on the platform offline and ad-free (Kurkowski, 2015). YouTube Red also includes access to YouTube Music, a subscription that normally costs users $9.99 per month (Mitroff, 2017). The service also includes exclusive access to YouTube’s original program offerings in the form of shows and movies. According to YouTube’s chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, “YouTube

Red marks an evolution in our desire to give fans more choice and features that they love” (Griffith, 2015).

YouTube tried to release original programming in 2011 when they spent over

$100 million investing in mainstream stars (Griffith, 2015). When those programs failed to take off, YouTube decided to invest in the stars that made the platform popular – the

YouTube influencers. By leveraging the talent they already had, YouTube was able to expand their offerings with YouTube Red to launch shows for popular YouTubers like

Joey Graceffa and Lilly Singh, as well as shows for Buzzfeed, College Humor, and

Disney (Mitroff 2017).

YouTube Red originally only launched in the United States, but today it is also available in Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and Mexico (Mitroff, 2017). Since the

13 launch in 2015, YouTube Red has over 1.5 million paid subscribers, a small number compared to the one billion users (Elder, 2017). Some argue that this is due to the fact that users are not willing to pay for a subscription service when access to YouTube is already free (Elder 2017). Ads on YouTube have been tolerated for years, so YouTube will need to leverage its original programming offerings to draw in subscribers to

YouTube Red.

Most recently, YouTube expanded its offerings to television programming with an app called YouTube TV. Originally launched in April 2017, YouTube TV is a cable alternative for users, offering over 50 channels including ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, as well as ESPN, FX, Bravo, E!, and USA (Huddleston, 2017). Most recently, YouTube announced a partnership with the MLB and NBA network channels (Huddleston, 2018).

When it launched, YouTube Red cost users $35 per month, and since they have increased the price to $40 per month (Huddleston, 2018). YouTube Red is not offered in every U.S. market, and currently only covers 85% of U.S. households (Huddleston, 2018).

In just the first year, there are over 300,000 subscribers (Huddleston, 2018).

Subscribers to YouTube TV are broadcasting content on their TV over 50% of the time, and on average watch YouTube TV 4 hours a day (Huddleston, 2017). According to

YouTube’s product management director, Christian Oestlien,"[YouTube TV] is about getting our service on as many platforms as possible and making it accessible to as many consumers as possible however they like to consumer their content in the living room”

(Huddleston, 2017).

By implementing various applications, YouTube is able to expand their reach and appeal to a wider audience. YouTube realizes that there is no way to please every user,

14 but the applications they offer each uniquely cater to a specific target market. YouTube is able to reach emerging markets, families with children, gaming fanatics, music lovers, while also competing with giants like Hulu and Netflix with their original content offerings.

Advertising on YouTube

Advertising through YouTube has evolved since its first launch in 2007. There are five different ways in which ads are presented on YouTube today - in-stream pre-roll advertisements, video overlays at the bottom of the window, on the side of the page, in search results and on the home page (Pashkevich, 2012). In 2003, Google introduced

AdSense, a way for creators to make money from ads on YouTube, a system that pays based on views by the thousands (Johnson, 2017). AdSense has made a free platform revenue-generating for content creators– something that makes YouTube a huge draw for both advertisers and users.

In 2010, YouTube introduced TrueView, a system that allows users to skip pre- roll advertisements after only 5 seconds of viewing the ad (Saunders, 2016). Through

TrueView ads, advertisers are only billed for their ad placement if a user decides to stay on the ad for at least 30 seconds. There are still in-stream pre-roll advertisements that are available for advertisers today that are non-skippable (Dehghani, 2016). A study done by

Google Research found that allowing users to skip advertisement reduced the negative impact of non-skippable ads by 30% (Pashkevich, 2012). The impact of advertisements on users can be turned into a positive experience due to the implementation of the 5- second ad and the implementation of TrueView for advertisers.

15 YouTube’s heaviest user group is the millennial generation (Saunders, 2016).

Thus, advertisers constantly seek out ways to appeal to millennials and entice millennial viewers to watch an advertisement. According to a study conducted by Ipsos and Google,

59% of millennials skip advertisements, and only 29% watch the advertisement in its entirety (BI Intelligence, 2017). Based on eye tracking technology utilized in the study, attention to YouTube advertisements is 84% higher than advertisements presented on television (BI Intelligence, 2017). This is promising for advertisers, as millennials are more likely to pay attention to advertisements presented online, regardless of how often they may skip an ad after 5 seconds.

Advertisers are also tapping into YouTube influencers to reach audiences through means other than direct advertising. According to a study conducted by Forbes in 2017,

84% of marketers plan on implementing at least one influencer marketing campaign during the next 12 months (Agrawal, 2017). That study also found that “47% of online consumers use ad blockers, giving brands and businesses even more reason to put their dollars behind influencers instead. Influencers are the ones holding everyone’s attention”

(Agrawal, 2017). Despite the fact that millennials may see and recognize brands through

YouTube ads, advertisers are realizing that they need to be more creative in their advertising efforts. To tap into influencers, brands will pay YouTubers to place their product in a video. Not only does this allow the advertiser to reach a large audience without being “skipped”, it also acts as a trustworthy testimonial that viewers can relate to (Elster, 2015).

According to a study conducted by Euromonitor Passport in 2015, 61% of 13-17 year olds said their favorite YouTubers had similar interests and 63% of those

16 respondants said they would try a product or brand that was recommended by a

YouTuber (Elster, 2015). To compare with TV personalities, only 48% of respondents said that they would purchase a product that was recommended by a TV or movie star

(Elster, 2015). The study noted,

“YouTube stars scored significantly higher than traditional celebrities across a range of characteristics considered to have the highest correlation to influencing purchases among teens. YouTubers were judged to be more engaging, extraordinary and relatable than mainstream stars…Looking at survey comments and feedback, teens enjoy an intimate and authentic experience with YouTube celebrities, who aren’t subject to image strategies carefully orchestrated by PR pros. Teens also say they appreciate YouTube stars’ more candid sense of humor, lack of filter and risk-taking spirit, behaviors often curbed by Hollywood handlers” (Elster, 2015).

A different study done by the Journal of Interactive Marketing found similar results, noting that self-promotion was a key driving force behind user-generated content geared toward brands (Smith, 2012). Content generated on YouTube is reaching users, and relatable YouTubers are building audiences that trust them (Smith, 2012). This is promising for brands, as not only can they reach YouTube users through a new 5-second advertising format, but through popular and trusted YouTubers as well.

Today, the average user watches 191 videos and 8 hours of content per month

(Saunders, 2016). That poses a huge opportunity for advertisers to reach their target market and connect with audiences through YouTube. Brands must adapt their tactics to reach audiences in the first few seconds of an YouTube advertisement in order to make an impression and to entice viewers to stay on an ad (BI Intelligence, 2017). Online advertising revenue is only expected to grow, reaching nearly $100 billion in 2012, an

8% increase from the projected $68.9 billion in 2016 (BI Intelligence, 2017).

17 Rise of the YouTuber

YouTube was built around the idea that anyone with the ability to record video and access to an internet connection could be a part of YouTube. The tagline, “Broadcast

Yourself” emphasized that idea, and has brought billions of users to YouTube, sharing content and interacting other users. As YouTube has grown in popularity and reach, creators have found a way to grow a following and develop a personal brand through video content. These popular creators are referred to as “YouTubers,” and they are quickly reaching the same caliber as mainstream celebrities (Elster, 2015).

In 2003 Google implemented their AdSense program creating a way for

YouTubers to make money from the platform. AdSense works on a cost per thousand basis, meaning YouTubers are paid based on the thousands of views received on videos that play ads (Johnson, 2017). The more subscribers and views a YouTuber has, the more revenue they have a chance of generating. Considering how large the platform has become, a YouTuber with a decent following could quickly generate $30,000 annually

(Johnson, 2017).

YouTubers also find sources of revenue from affiliate programs, sponsorships and brand deals, crowdfunding programs like Patreon, merchandising, and consulting or public speaking events (Johnson, 2017). As well, YouTubers look to create a cross- platform presence to build their audience and interact with their “fans” (Saunders, 2016).

YouTubers will be sure to create an Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and even a blog to promote their YouTube content and share their life online (Saunders, 2016). YouTube influencers are also starting to distinguish between “hub content” and “hero content” as a way to grow their audience. “Hub content” can be defined as regular or scheduled videos

18 that gives the user a reason to subscribe to the channel and to return on a regular basis

(Saunders, 2016). “Hero content” refers to bigger, event-based content such as livestreaming or a viral video that brings new users to the channel (Saunders, 2016). By leveraging both types of content, YouTubers are able to curate a reliable and loyal audience, while simultaneously trying to grow their reach and bring in new viewers to see revenue growth (Cayari, 2011).

Today, the most subscribed-to YouTuber is PewDiePie with 60.4 million subscribers. PewDiePie, more formally known as Felix Kjellberg, is a Swedish YouTuber that started his YouTube channel in 2010 (Woolley, 2017). He is most known for his gaming videos and his “Let’s Play” series featuring hundreds of videos playing various video games and sharing tips and tricks with his fans (Cohen, 2015). He is also known for his crude humor and blunt comments made during his videos (Woolley, 2017). Gaming videos are extremely popular on the platform and 95% of gamers will watch videos that have to do with video games (Woolley, 2017). The figure below shows subscriber counts for the top 10 most popular YouTubers around the globe.

Top 10 Most Subscribed-To YouTubers 70 60.4 60 50 33.1 40 27.3 26.7 26.6 26.5 26.2 30 22.6 22.3 20.8 20 10 0

Subscribers (in millions) Smosh PewDiePie Fernanfloo Vegetta777 Dude Perfect ElRubiusOMG VanossGaming HolaSoyGerman Canal KondZilla Whinderssonnunes YouTubers (Lynch, 2018)

19 Competitive Landscape

YouTube is currently facing large competitors in the online video market. The main competition that YouTube is facing is through Vimeo, social sites like Facebook,

Instagram, and Twitter, and even studio and network competitors like Netflix and Hulu.

While YouTube is the number-two most visited site, just behind its parent company

Google, other sites are looking for ways to tap into video content and compete in the market. YouTube is seeing competition from all angles, including video content, advertising, and even original content and streaming. However, according to Daily Dot reporter Rae Votta, “As these companies moves forward, they’ll each attempt to take bites out of the YouTube giant, but as it stands, none is poised to topple the king unless they can revolutionize the one area of vulnerability—money” (Votta, 2014).

Vimeo is a popular video content platform that can be considered a competitor to

YouTube. Unlike YouTube, however, Vimeo does not include pre-roll advertisements on their videos (Lahaie, 2016). The majority of Vimeo’s revenue comes from their subscription-based membership fees. Users can decide to use the site for free and store video content for free, however, in order to receive more storage space for videos and more analytics tools, different subscription services such as Plus, Pro, and Business are offered (Lahaie, 2016). Due to the fact that Vimeo does not feature advertising on their videos, content creators do not have a way of making money directly from the Vimeo site. As for reach, Vimeo only sees about 170 million users compared to YouTube’s reach of over 1 billion users (Lahaie, 2016). While Vimeo is a strong outlet for storing and sharing content, it is a smaller platform that is not as attractive to users to build revenue or to advertisers to build their brand (Votta, 2014).

20 The first major social platform that competes more directly with YouTube would be Facebook. Facebook and YouTube both offer live streaming, news, video sharing, and most recently for Facebook, original content (Williams, 2018). Video is not the main content driver on Facebook, however, as “Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you” (O’Neil, 2008). Facebook was created as a social platform to connect users not just through video, but through photos, status updates, and interacting with your friends’ content through liking and commenting (O’Neil, 2008). However, in

2016, 75% more video content was posted to Facebook than previous years (LePage,

2016). While video content on Facebook is growing, Facebook videos focus on driving traffic in the short term (Williams, 2018). According to Greg Jarboe, President and Co-

Founder of SEO-PR, 50% of Facebook views occur on day one, while YouTube videos receive 20% of views on the first day (Jarboe, 2015). YouTube is a platform in which users can build views and interaction on the site over longer periods of time, while

Facebook users’ constant status updates do not encourage long term traffic and re-visiting old videos (LePage, 2016).

To compete with YouTube advertising, Facebook has started including in-stream advertisements in videos (Williams, 2018). While Facebook users cannot directly make money from the in-stream ads on the site as they would on YouTube, Facebook video advertising opens up opportunities for advertisers and businesses to reach new audiences

(Williams, 2018). While advertising on Facebook is promising, YouTube still has a more impressive backing from advertisers. In 2017, 100% of the top 100 global brands were advertising through YouTube (LePage, 2017). Facebook also plans to expand upon its

“Watch” platform, a new feature that was implemented in August of 2017, to share real-

21 time news updates (Williams, 2018). This could be considered an attempt by Facebook to compete with YouTube TV and YouTube’s partnerships with various news outlets.

Instagram is also a social media outlet that attempts to compete with YouTube in the sense of video content. While the focus of these two social platforms vary greatly from YouTube’s video focus, video content on these sites are a huge part of audience interaction and brand presence. While users don’t make money directly from Instagram as YouTubers do, brand presence on Instagram is huge for reaching audiences. Brands can pay to sponsor posts of popular influencers, as well as pay to advertise their products and services through Instagram (Osman, 2018). On Instagram, photos are the most shared form of content, however, video content is growing. Currently, over 25% advertisements on Instagram are videos, and 80% of users follow a business account on Instagram

(Osman, 2018). Due to the fact that many influencers and YouTubers are looking to cross-promote themselves on different platforms, advertisers can also look to leverage the loyal audience base through Instagram.

Netflix and Hulu can also be considered competitors to YouTube since YouTube has implemented original content offerings through YouTube Red. While the basic

Netflix and Hulu subscriptions are priced at $7.99 per month, YouTube Red costs $9.99 per month (Tracy, 2015). YouTube Red’s competitive advantage and the selling point for the platform lies in its exclusive originals such as shows from YouTubers like Lilly Singh and Joey Graceffa, as well as ad-free viewing (Tracy, 2015). Hulu has recently started releasing originals to keep up with Netflix and YouTube, however, users have to pay

$11.99 per month for a commercial-free viewing experience (Brackett, 2017). As far as

YouTube TV is concerned, the market reach is much more limited than Netflix and Hulu,

22 however, the sports streaming offered through YouTube TV will be something unique that Netflix and Hulu don’t currently offer (Brackett, 2017). YouTube TV will cost users

$35 per month, a price much steeper than Hulu and Netflix if users want to stream those capabilities (Brackett, 2017).

Overall, there is no one platform that does exactly what YouTube is doing, and no one platform that is performing better than YouTube in every aspect. Social media and video have begun to merge together on major social platforms as consumers are demanding more content at their fingertips (LePage, 2017). YouTube is topping the market overall, however, aspects such as advertising and original content are areas of growth for YouTube to improve and continue expanding upon.

Challenges for YouTube’s Future

While YouTube has made many strides in expanding their user-base, tackling technological advancements and achieving video sharing milestones, it is facing many challenges in the current marketplace. In March 2017, referred to as the “adpocolypse,” hundreds of businesses began pulling their advertising from YouTube due to the fact that they were being placed in front of videos that featured inappropriate content (James,

2017). According to the Financial Times, “the YouTube controversy comes less than a year after a Google-provided service placed ads from Citigroup, Microsoft and IBM on the website of an Islamist extremist accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings” (Bond, 2018). Brands such as McDonald’s, Toyota, and Starbucks pulled their advertisements on YouTube after being placed in front of content that promoted extremist and terrorist groups (Schimkowitz, 2017).

23 Many content creators viewed YouTube’s fixes as the platform “over-correcting” its mistakes. YouTube’s analytics began demonetizing videos that were flagged as inappropriate, otherwise explained as taking away the opportunity for the video to make a profit off of the advertising (Summers, 2017). This was viewed by some as a step in the right direction to benefit advertisers and address the scandal, however, a lot of videos that did not feature inappropriate content were flagged by mistake and creators lost a huge portion of advertising revenue they could have otherwise made (Summers, 2018). On

September 5, 2017, YouTube responded in a blog post:

“We’ve heard questions about why the monetization status is applied so quickly after upload (including with unlisted and private videos). This is because in the first few hours of a video upload we use machine learning to determine if a video meets our advertiser-friendly guidelines. This also applies to scheduled live streams, where our systems look at the title, description, thumbnail and tags even before the stream goes live. We know our system doesn’t always get it right, so if you see a yellow icon in your Video Manager and feel our automated systems made a mistake, please appeal. As noted above, an appeal gets sent to a human reviewer and their decisions help our systems get smarter over time. Deleting the video and re-uploading won’t help” (Schimkowitz, 2017).

In order to continue growing and dominating the market, YouTube must address these issues to improve their site in a way that satisfies both advertisers and users.

YouTube is still facing glitches in their artificial intelligence, and in turn can hurt the platform in the long run if advertisers become dissatisfied with the platform

(Schimkowitz, 2017). However, despite the controversy surrounding advertising on

YouTube, Google’s overall advertising revenue still increased 22% in that quarter

(James, 2017). Despite the massive backlash facing YouTube, it still remains as a powerhouse brand that can stand up against it competitors even in times of hardship.

24 While still dealing with scandals and glitches, YouTube must continue adapting to new trends in the marketplace to stay relevant with users. According to Robert Kyncl,

YouTube’s chief business officer, the future of YouTube lies in ability to grow its music streaming platform to compete with Spotify and Apple Music, as well as adopt virtual reality capabilities (Popper, 2016). Kyncl noted that YouTube’s 360 and 3D video capabilities have laid the foundation to advance on to virtual reality (Popper, 2016).

Videos that are offered in 360-degrees give advantages to advertisers. For example, a

360-degree advertisement created for Coca-Cola’s 100th anniversary had a 36% higher viewing rate over standard video (Boland, 2015). This is promising for advertisers looking to advance to virtual reality ads on YouTube, as users tend to enjoy an advertising interaction and experience (Boland, 2015).

Overall, the backing of Google has dramatically grown YouTube as a platform for users and for advertisers. As the second-most visited site globally, YouTube has become a unique outlet for video content, social interaction, and growing advertising revenue. In the future, YouTube is facing challenges improving its backend artificial intelligence in order to monitor the content placed on the site. YouTube is also seeing other social media outlets competing with advertising and video content as video content has grown more popular among a mobile consumer base. Technological advancements such as virtual reality pose an opportunity for YouTube to remain relevant and continue achieving milestones in the marketplace.

25 Research Approach

After the above analysis on current literature surrounding YouTube, two different research questions emerged to cover two aspects of YouTube’s user base – businesses and millennials. Each research questions focuses on a different user group and utilizes different research methods. The goal of these two studies was to gain a well-rounded perspective on YouTube in order to understand how its two biggest user bases interact with and view the site. Both qualitative and quantitative measures were used to collect data, while descriptive analytics were used to describe the results of the data. The hope is that this research can benefit companies that advertise through YouTube as well as benefit YouTube in understanding how its users act.

Study 1: Impact of YouTube on Businesses

Research Question

Study 1 specifically addresses the first research question that refers to how companies interact with and gauge YouTube as a strategy for their business. The proposed research question is:

How do advertising professionals view the importance of utilizing

YouTube for their company, how do they approach ads and sponsored

content, and what are the implications of that?

Methodology

To answer the research question, six different in-depth interviews were conducted with six professionals at marketing and advertising companies across the country. In- depth interviews were chosen as desired research method due to the fact that they would be able to provide a detailed look into the mind of a person that interacts with YouTube

26 as a business professional. Emails were sent out to 10 different professionals asking for their participation in the study, while 6 responded volunteering to participate. Of the respondents, 50% were male and 50% were female. Each participant was from a different company in order to see if that factor provoked a diverse set of responses. The figure below outlines the professionals that participated in the study.

Name Position Company Location Chris Ferrel Director, Digital The Richard’s Dallas, TX Strategy Group Danny Veech Account Coordinator Social Within Austin, TX Bo Reisinger Senior Account Hart Inc. Columbus, OH Executive Cheryl Harrison Principal/Founder Speech Bubble PR Columbus, OH Tracey McCormack Local Sales Manager Fox LA Los Angeles, CA Nina Bressau Senior Strategist The Integer Group Fort Worth, TX

The interviews each took place over the phone due to the fact that none of the participants were located in Athens, OH and also due to the fact that the interviews needed to be recorded. A date and time for the interview was agreed upon via email, and interviews were conducted between January-February 2018. Upon completion of the interview, it was transcribed in order to analyze the results. Each interview was scripted with the same seven open-ended questions (Appendix A). The questions were as follows:

1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or

professionally)

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a

daily basis?

27 3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube? How do you determine which of these sites are

going to be a part of a media plan?

4. Do you frequently use YouTube as part of a media plan? Do you have any

knowledge of best practices or effective case histories where YouTube was

utilized as an integral part of the plan? Are there any instances where YouTube

failed to produce results in a media plan?

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as

a platform and a brand?

6. Are you familiar with YouTube's recent "adpocolypse" and the current scandals

surrounding ads being in front of inappropriate content? If so - What is your

reaction to it? Was your particular business affected by it? What do you think

YouTube needs to do to address it in order to move forward and satisfy

advertisers?

7. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has

YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does

YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing?

All opinions expressed in the interviews reflect that of the individual being interviewed, not the company that they work for. Each interview varied in length depending upon the participant’s experience with YouTube and diversity of opinion on the platform. There were occasions in which the interview went off-script in order to address a comment or have the interviewee further explain a point that was made, and these instances were included in each of the transcriptions. It was made clear to each

28 respondent that quotes from the interviews would be included in this research and that the names of respondents would appear with the quotes. This decision made in order to uncover trends that tied in the respondent’s line of work to attempt to understand why they would respond in the way that they did.

Results and Discussion

After analyzing the data, three major categories of responses emerged – interactions with YouTube, YouTube as a business strategy, and YouTube’s current landscape and future. Each respondent was familiar with the site and had used the site in the past, and also has had professional interactions with YouTube for business purposes.

As well, each respondent understood the fact that YouTube could be used as a strategy for business. Each respondent was also familiar with the current scandals surrounding

YouTube and had opinions on those and how YouTube could move forward for the future.

Interacting with YouTube

Each respondent was asked about how their personal and professional interactions with YouTube differ. All respondents were familiar with and had used YouTube before.

Chris Ferrel noted, “Professionally, it's always been a foundational piece of at least our planning efforts, if not a significant part of our overall investment. For the better part of the last decade YouTube has certainly been on my radar as a marketer” (Appendix B). Bo

Reisinger echoed Ferrel’s point, saying, “I've probably been aware of YouTube going on

10-11 years. When I was in college it wasn't as prolific or as extensive as it is now, so definitely more use as the years go on and obviously more professionally than personally. personally, because I have young children now, that’s pretty much where I interact with

29 it. I don't use it much personally but if my kids are looking to watch a quick little video or my little boy wants to watch some football highlights that's where I go” (Appendix D).

Nina Bressau said, “I would say, often content links back to YouTube, so I don't necessarily have to go on the site. I do, depending on what I search, I typically don't tend to watch videos when I look for an answer. I tend to look on Google for more written content. But I do go on the app on my Apple TV (Appendix G). Cheryl Harrison is a fan of gaming content on YouTube, and frequently goes to the site to watch her favorite

YouTubers. She noted,

I use YouTube personally, frequently I use it for live streaming music and I use it to watch video game live-streamers. I blame my fiancé for that, but he got really into watching other people play video games, which I thought was really weird because I don’t really understand the point of it, but he introduced me to a couple of streamers that are pretty entertaining and engaging. There's one streamer we watch pretty much every day who, I mean, I watch this girl make $2,000-3,000 a night playing video games. Her channel is One Shot Girl, her name is Julie and she's in Cincinnati. She's got half a million subscribers on her YouTube channel and probably has 2,000-3,000 people watching her every night. Fortnite and Player Unknown's Battlegrounds are the two that we mostly watch but she plays other puzzle games and horror games too (Appendix E).

Regardless of professional interactions with the site, each respondent generally has had personal interactions with YouTube, even if they are not frequent or current. This is important to note due to the fact that each respondent has both a personal and professional perspective of YouTube, and that is echoed throughout their responses in the interviews. Even though questions mainly focused on YouTube from a business perspective, personal use of YouTube often influenced the way that respondents talked about strategizing YouTube for businesses. It was also common that respondents knew

30 about YouTube for years, emphasizing how massive the platform’s reach is and how their brand recognition has remained strong and effective over the years despite use.

YouTube as a Business Strategy

Each respondent was asked to analyze YouTube as a tool for business from their perspective as a marketing and advertising professional, as well as analyze how effective they viewed advertising on YouTube overall. Some respondents were limited on their knowledge of advertising practices through YouTube due to the fact that their job doesn’t tap into that capability. For example, Danny Veech said:

For advertising, strictly in the terms of me doing my job, Facebook is king. They have the best algorithm, they track your pixels, they track all of your purchases, they have the best reach, they have the best everything. Everyone is trying to copy that, but theirs is so superior, and they're always coming out with new stuff. Their new analytics tool is beautiful, and they keep making changes to that, so Facebook is king. By far #1. And you can tag Instagram along with that technically… YouTube's place is 'content is king.' If you want your brand to be a brand and not just a t- shirt company, you have to have content, especially where video is the most successful. Basically, all of my ads are video. YouTube is really important to be able to have that arm and to be able to tell stories with your brand through video and in an engaging way (Appendix C).

Participants also touched on the shorter, skippable advertisements that appear on

YouTube and how that poses a challenge for businesses and advertisers. Ferrel commented:

I think the biggest difference is the mindset that you take when you're the user of YouTube versus a marketer on YouTube. And it all kind of boils down to the skip button. I think it's something that we as users, and myself included, use every single day. Every single day I skip and ad on YouTube. Every single day I hit that skip button and I love it. As a user it gives you power, it gives you the power of choice. It gives you the power to watch an ad or not, but for that as a user it's very conflicting to me as a marketer because this things that I love to use every day, that skip button, is one of the greatest challenges we have as marketers on YouTube…. So we as marketers, whether we like it or not, must learn to work with and embrace a skippable ad format. So the way that we break down this new

31 era of skippable digital, it's really with four big things in mind - first three are probably not surprising at all, it's mobile, social, and video… And then the fourth thing that is the more challenging but also biggest opportunity for marketers is the fact that there is now user choice when it comes to user advertising. More and more, in terms of digital, you don't have to watch that ad. The power to swipe your thumb right past a Facebook ad, the power on YouTube to hit that skip button, it is the new norm. (Appendix B)

Ferrel touches on a point that other participants noted – the idea that there is now user choice and that advertisers must be aware of that. As well, advertisers need to be aware of best strategies in order to actually make an impact on the audience. Bo

Reisinger had a similar response, saying:

In my opinion from a best practices perspective, again it goes back to the strategy, and what are the objectives we're trying to achieve. So, if it is new content that we've created, that we want our consumer or audience to engage with, we have to determine if we are buying space that we want to basically advertise or market ourselves. So if we have created say a 30 second TV spot, and in the planning of that spot, after it rolls out, do we cut it down and build a 15 second one, do we build a 10 or now the hot trend of these 6 second ads that we can grab someone's attention with a clear message and call to action quick enough. I haven't seen a lot where it wasn't successful, but that is also dependent on that integrated strategy and the other ways you're communicating. Because a lot of times, these videos are also placed on say a landing page, or a corporate website, so we have to be able to delineate who is actually going straight to YouTube, or who is actually clinking on a link from our site to engage with that video (Appendix D).

Tracey McCormack touched on the idea that content is king for YouTube, and that regardless of advertising practices, the content is the most important part to focus on.

She said:

It's all about content. That’s what YouTube TV and YouTube Red are all about. It's all about content. There's an article recently, I want to say it was in AdAge, where Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, they're spending billions of dollars, they've committed billions to original content. Somebody is going to make a 'Handmaids Tale.' Now for every 'handmaids Tale,' there's 500 shows nobody has ever heard of. But the 'Ozark' and the 'Handmaids Tale' and the 'Stranger Things' and the '13 Reasons Why', and Facebook is

32 going to make theirs too. It's everybody is in the same boat. The platform really is agnostic now, we are platform agnostic. Meaning, people will watch content on YouTube, on Facebook, on broadcast television, Amazon Prime, anywhere they want, as long as the content is good and relevant, and people are talking about it. That's what this is all about. It's all about the quality of the content (Appendix F).

Overall, participant responses supported the idea that advertising on YouTube is a strong and effective tool in reaching audiences. It was emphasized that advertisers have the challenge of adjusting their strategies to fit the new, shorter advertising formats in order to capture the attention of users. Participants used the word “mindset” and

“integrated strategy” when explaining the best practices for leveraging advertising on

YouTube. It’s also important to note that Veech emphasized how Facebook is competing with YouTube in the advertising marketplace, and that he views Facebook advertising as superior to YouTube’s based on his particular experiences (Appendix C).

YouTube’s current landscape and future

Many of the participants were familiar with the recent scandals surrounding advertisements being placed in front of inappropriate content. McCormack has a background in broadcast television and discussed the major differences between regulations on YouTube versus television. She said:

The advertising business is like 20% of our country's entire GDP, and those advertisers should be protected, and the consumer should be protected. We've been involved in television broadcasting, we have been involved in brand safety, not only has it been important, advertisers brand safety, not only has it been important to our brand, it's required by the FCC. They have these influencers now, some of them with the largest audiences, like PewDiePie with 740 some million subscribers, to what is now called micro-influencers with 250,000 subscribers and everywhere in between. But nobody is watching what they are doing and whatever Google has decided to start doing, starting last year or two years ago in terms of ensuring the ads are being run next to videos that is not content that is inappropriate. These influencers are cursing their heads off. In television, we take a beer advertisement, and we have to make sure that

33 the audience that is watching that program is 70% over the age of 21. So a beer can only advertise to adults 21+, and the programs that advertise in have to reach an audience of over 70% 21. But these influencers are allowed to curse, and make anti-Semitic remarks, and do whatever they want on the free internet, and the advertisers are not getting protected. It's going to hurt much bigger than YouTube in the end. It's hurting consumers and it's hurting advertisers. These advertisers pulled out of YouTube and Google ads because they're not safe and it's bad for everyone all the way around. I'm all for freedom of the press, I am all for people being able to say and do what they want on the internet when it's free, and I'm all for net-neutrality, personally, but I think the brands, these 500 national advertisers, are the backbone of a big piece of our gross domestic product, and they deserve to be protected, and somebody has got to watch out for their benefit (Appendix F).

McCormack expanded on her point that because YouTube is a free platform, there are a lot more parallels between broadcast television and YouTube than people realize.

She implied that regulations for free media platforms should mirror each other in order to protect the user. Once a platform is paid for, the regulations are much more lenient because the consumer is now paying for a product. She said:

They can't possibly make people pay and then have to have the same rules as broadcasting. Once it becomes free like YouTube, not YouTube Red and not YouTube TV, YouTube is free, and it's absolutely a broadcaster, reaching more people than broadcast TV with none of the same rules that we face… Maybe there should be some warning, maybe there should be a 10 second red pre-roll that says something. You go to a movie, because it's a public broadcast, you go to a movie and watch a trailer, and it says in a big green box, 'this trailer is not appropriate for all audiences, this has been rated PG-13.' We still have R-rated movies that you have to be 17 to get into, but YouTube, you can type in youtube.com, and get anything you want without a rating, without a warning. Maybe everything that is explicit content has to have a big red 5 second what we call billboard that says, 'there is going to be content that is inappropriate’ (Appendix F).

Bressau echoed McCormack’s point, saying:

First off, YouTube is social media, which means it's an unregulated or uncontrolled environment, so it's not like you can really prevent inappropriate content, and you can't really prevent people from reacting. But at the same time, I do think that it's good to have some kind of regulation on it, or at least more targeted content or relevant content that

34 makes sense. And I think YouTube has been working on doing that, so I know they have some kind of new regulations to make it more advertiser friendly. I would definitely have to look into it more, but I think just being transparent about it and being open and keeping everyone in the loop about what is going on (Appendix G).

Ferrel also discussed the implications of regulations on a free platform. He explained that there is no way that YouTube can be 100% effective in monitoring content. He explained:

I think we can speak to that anecdotally, every time we log in we get forced to look at an ad or even if we have to stare at that countdown 5-4-3- 2--1, users by and large do not like advertising on the platform. However, there is an expectation for most that if I'm using something for free, someone else is paying for that ability for me to do that. So, to some degree advertising is tolerated and it's kind of up to the brand marketers to flip that script from the expectation of having a really negative experience with that to something positive….The millions of hours that are uploaded to YouTube, it's certainly not unreasonable that even if you're 99% effective that there's some stuff that's going to slip through the cracks. On the other side I think what it did was send a wakeup call to the joint responsibility that not only Google has when it comes to identifying that type of content but also, we as advertisers need to have, in terms of accountability, just understanding exactly where our advertising is appearing (Appendix B).

Harrison addressed the scandal by turning the tables on user, or the YouTuber, that is posting inappropriate content. She explained that it is more important to protect the advertiser and police the content than it is to protect the YouTuber. She said:

I think that in the past, anytime there's any sort of scandal, the backlash seems to fall on the company more than it falls on individual users. So I think you have to stop ad revenue and shut down channels that are creating negative publicity for you because people are otherwise going to blame you for your dumb users. Any time anyone has any negative impact on your business even if it wasn't directly related to you I think you kind of have to cut the relationship at this point because people are going to freak out at you otherwise. It might not be a great long-term thing, but I think we're definitely in that time for the moment anyway. I think that as long as they continue to foster good content, which they have really good relationships with a lot of their content producers who aren't bringing them negative publicity, I think that will be key because everyone is in the

35 content game now. Every streaming app, every social network is trying to have the best content out there and having a huge platform with terrible content is never going to work in the long-term (Appendix E).

YouTube did attempt to address protecting advertisers and users by imposing stricter regulation on content, however, many were dissatisfied with the effectiveness of the software. Despite the fact that it is not yet 100% effective, respondents noted that people should be relieved that YouTube is at least doing something about the issues.

Veech commented:

For YouTube, as an advertiser, I would be grateful that YouTube is trying to do their due diligence to make sure my ads are being delivered in places that reflect my brand appropriately. Even if you could skip that ad in five seconds, you still have the potential of someone taking a screen shot of your ad with the headline of the YouTube video being, for example, something completely degrading and posting that with your brand being affiliated with that. For advertisers, of course I would be pissed off in the terms of it probably would cost more to reach 1,000 people now, which happens. But I would rather spend more money on appropriate content than waste dollars and destroy my brand on inappropriate content (Appendix C).

As far as future growth for YouTube is concerned, respondents had some thoughts on where YouTube’s future seems to be going as far as technological advancements. Ferrel touched on the “screen-less internet trend” and how that would affect YouTube’s future, saying:

And I think you'll see some nice interplay between Google voice activated, Google Home like experiences and YouTube content if you're able to pull up instantly that one specific step number 5 of 25 on 'how do I change a car tire?' That's pretty useful to be able to have that voice interaction and pull up that exact point in time of that video content on your phone or on your tablet. So I think there will be some really nice use cases where you'll see complimentary interplay between voice activated screen-less internet and our more comfortable smartphone, mobile first driven video(Appendix B).

36 YouTube has also grown as a platform as far as reach is concerned and has focused a lot of efforts on expanding into emerging markets. Veech recognized this, and also noted that YouTube shouldn’t look to make any drastic changes for the future. He said:

You see all these crazy success stories about children in India creating their own generators strictly off of watching YouTube videos. So my industry in advertising, they've given us more reach. It's been able to give our company a way of telling stories. Then personally, they've changed the consumer behavior of how we do things….I don't want to see any huge change happen, I want them to keep being a free platform where anyone with any sort of internet connection can go and learn or watch and do anything (Appendix C).

Overall, this study revealed three major trends and implications for YouTube as a business too. The first trend that emerged from this study refers to the idea that even personal use of YouTube b professionals reveals trends and strategies that they can then use when implementing YouTube for business. Professionals have different mindset when they access YouTube personally versus when they access it professionally, and thus can tap into the mind of the user to better access their target markets in a professional setting. The second takeaway from this study was that advertisers are shifting their mindsets into a shorter, skippable ad format. Advertisers have to adjust their strategy in order to leverage YouTube’s ad capabilities and develop a lasting impression on users.

The third takeaway, particularly in reference to YouTube’s future, was the idea that each new and innovative social media outlet has to go through the process of working through issues and developing their back-end technology. Many respondents felt this was the time that YouTube was experiencing this, and that it was inevitable for a problem to arise eventually. Similarly, respondents generally felt that it was important for YouTube, and ultimately Google, to do their due diligence in protecting advertisers and users in the

37 most effective way possible. As for growth opportunities for YouTube, respondents were pleased with the way that YouTube has grown until now, and don’t want to see major shifts in YouTube’s strategy. However, they did note that technological advancements, such as screen-less internet, will definitely impact YouTube in the future and that

YouTube needed to be aware of the trends in order to adapt to changing consumer preferences.

Limitations

This study was limited to those that responded to the email inquiry and volunteered to participate. As well, the participants were limited to the contacts that we had access to and had contact information for in order to make an introduction for this study. Due to the fact that the interviewees knew their names were not being kept confidential, respondents could have omitted certain beliefs or opinions that they did not want to be shared publicly in the context of this research. The scope of this research limited the number of responses that could be collected due to the fact that all interviews took place during a two-month time frame.

38 Study 2: Impact of YouTube on Millennials

Research Question

Study 2 specifically addresses the second research questions that refers to how millennials are interacting with YouTube. The aim of this research question is to reveal how millennials interact with YouTube on a daily basis and how they viewed YouTube as a brand. The question seeks to understand how YouTube is placed into every day life, as well as uncover if respondents could recall brands and YouTubers. The proposed research question is:

How do college-aged millennials interact with YouTube and view

sponsored content, and what are the implications of that?

Methodology

Due to the fact that this study’s goal was to focus on millennials, an online

Qualtrics survey was designed and sent out to Ohio University students. Ohio University students were the most accessible group of millennials due to the scope of this study. Out of the 300 students that responded to the survey was distributed to there were 92 students that responded. The survey was distributed via an anonymous link through email as well as via mobile device in an application called GroupMe. The survey was completely voluntary and remained anonymous for respondents. The survey included 15 questions, with questions including multiple choice, “select all that apply” and also typed responses to test recall of brands and YouTubers (Appendix H). It was not required that respondents answered every single question in order to complete the study.

39 Results and Discussion

Out of the 92 responses, 28% were male and 72% were female. This is significant to note due to the fact that 38% of YouTube users are female and 62% are male

(“YouTube for Press,” 2017). It’s important to note that the large percent of female respondents could have skewed the data which could have conveyed more female preferences on YouTube. The average age of respondents was 20 years old, with 66% of the respondents being either 20 or 21 years-old. The majority of the respondents, 44%, were juniors and seniors at Ohio University. It is important to note that 100% of the respondents have used YouTube and there was not any one respondent that said they never access the site. This result shows that millennials are in fact a heavy user group of

YouTube and supports the fact that YouTube has penetrated everyday life. Even though the entire respondent pool has accessed YouTube, only 17.65% access the platform with others, and the remaining 82.35% access YouTube alone. This is a significant result due to the fact that it implies that YouTube is not something people gather to watch as if it were a show or event broadcasted on television.

It was important to understand how often millennials access YouTube in order to try to understand how important they view platform. Based on the study, 31 respondents access YouTube a few times per year, and 24 respondents access YouTube a few times per day. Not one respondent said that they never accessed YouTube, as well, no one responded that they only accessed it once a year. These answers were the majority responses, which implies that YouTube is something millennials frequently access. It also implies that YouTube is top of mind for many millennials. The chart below shows the breakdown of responses for this question.

40 How often do you access YouTube?

35 31 30

25 24

15 14 10 10 6 5 0 0 0 Never Once a Once a Once a A few Once a A few year month week times per day times per year day

(Appendix H)

Through this study we wanted to reveal how often millennials went directly to

YouTube to watch content rather than following a YouTube video link. Due to the fact that YouTube can be used as merely a place to store video content, it could be beneficial to understand if millennials prefer going directly to YouTube or not. Based on the survey, the majority of respondents went directly to YouTube 75% of the time to watch content rather than following a link. It is important to note that there were 5 respondents that said that 0% of the time did they go directly to YouTube, meaning they always followed a

YouTube link or viewed YouTube content through another site or social channel. While it is not many respondents, it is important for businesses to note that not all millennials.

The chart below shows the breakdown of responses to the survey question.

41 What percentage of the time do you go directly to YouTube.com for content?

40 37 35

20 15 15 15 13

10 5 5

0 0% of the time 25% of the 50% of the 75% of the 100% of the time time time time

(Appendix H)

Respondents were asked to recall the first five YouTubers that came to mind if they could recall any. The word cloud below represents the responses and highlights the most recalled YouTubers – Jacyln Hill, Jeffree Star, and Shane Dawson. Jacyln Hill was recalled by 7 reponsdents and Jeffree Star was recalled by 6 of the respondents. Both of these YouTubers’ content is centered around makeup and could be the most frequently recalled due to the fact that the respondent pool is majority female. Shane Dawson is a comedy-based YouTuber and has written books, skits, and series. While respondents could recall YouTubers, either ones that they watched or ones that they had heard of, around 49% of respondents are not actually subscribed to any YouTubers. This could be due to the fact that YouTube requires users to create an account in order to subscribe to

42 any YouTubers. It could be seen as an inconvenience for users, especially the millennials generation that thrives on convenience.

(Appendix H)

It was also important to reveal what millennials are actually going to YouTube for. The study showed that the majority of respondents are actually going to YouTube to view music videos, as well as following along with favorite YouTubers. As previously mentioned, 49% of respondents are not actually subscribed to YouTubers, thus, the idea that many respondents were following along with their favorite YouTubers is a significant result. This means that those responders that aren’t subscribed must be going out of their way to search for their favorite YouTubers and their videos. Respondents also had the option to fill out other reasons that accessed YouTubers. Popular responses included sports content and music related content like concerts. The chart below shows the breakdown of responses for what type of content millennials are going to YouTube for.

43 What do you use YouTube for?

45 39 40 34 35 30 25 25 23 20 15 14 15 10 10 5 0 Following Watching Viewing a Product How-to Academic Other along with music popular reviews videos related (please favorite videos video that content specify) YouTubers someone posted on social media

(Appendix H)

Due to the fact that advertising has shifted to adapt to the 5-second ad format, respondents were asked how often they utilize the skip button when given the chance.

The results show that 61 of the respondents, or, 72%, always utilized the skip button.

This confirms what was said during study 1 regarding skip button preferences and confirms the idea that user do love the skip button. This is significant for advertisers to note and to take into account when creating ads to reach their target market through

YouTube. The figure below shows the responses for this question, however, only 85 respondents answered this question.

44 How often do you use the skip button on ads?

70 61 60

30 19 20

10 1 1 3 0 Never Sometimes About half Most of the Always the time time

(Appendix H)

When asked to recall brands that the respondents have seen in recent visits to

YouTube, the majority of respondents remembered Wix and shaving brands. The word cloud below shows the responses, with “wix” and “shave” brands being highlighted as the most recalled. Wix, a website building platform, has recently released advertisements with popular YouTubers like iJustine and Rhett and Link to promote the site. The majority of respondents recalled words like “dollar shave club,” “schick,” and “shave” in addition to “wix”. Other popular answers were makeup brands like Morphe and

Smashbox. This could be due to the fact that the majority of respondents were females, and females are the largest target market for purchasing makeup.

(Appendix H)

Overall, this study revealed that millennials are in fact accessing YouTube and are accessing the platform frequently. However, 49% of the respondents are not actually subscribed to YouTubers. This could reveal that users are not actually creating YouTube accounts and are merely visiting the site searching for content or viewing popular content. Respondents were able to recall brands that they saw on the platform, and the most recalled brands were related to shaving as well as Wix, a website design platform.

The skip button was favored by respondents, as the majority of them took advantage of the skip button on advertisements. This is an important statistic for advertisers to make note of and confirms the idea that millennials prefer ads that are short. However, due to the fact that respondents were able to recall brands reveals the idea that even though ads are being skipped, brands are being remembered.

Limitations

This study was limited to only Ohio University students; thus, results could have been skewed to fit the preferences of students at this university. As well, the respondents were majority female, so responses on brand and YouTuber recall could have been

46 skewed to fit female preferences. Questions in this survey did not force responses, so some questions did not have answers for the full 92 respondent pool.

Recommendations and Future Research

After analyzing the results from both studies as well as current literature,

YouTube seems to be a site that brands are leveraging to broadcast themselves.

YouTube’s slogan, “Broadcast Yourself,” has transformed from broadcasting the everyday person into broadcasting brands and influencers to build businesses and revenue. YouTube has been made into a site that users can make a profit and build a personal brand and has transformed into more than just a site to store personal video content to share with friends and family.

It is recommended that YouTube continues working on making improvements to their software in order to accurately and quickly review videos and properly place advertisements. This will better satisfy advertisers and benefit them as well as consumers in the long run. It is also recommended that businesses try adapting a shorter advertising format to appeal to millennials that tend to click on the skip button when presented with it. This will allow advertisers to make a quick, and hopefully lasting, impression on consumers before the advertisement is skipped. Businesses could tap into popular

YouTubers to make an impression on millennials as well, as many millennials view content on YouTube by watching their favorite YouTubers’ videos.

For future business research, it could be beneficial to look into other types of business models and how they evaluate YouTube. For example, banks like Chase, restaurants like Wendy’s, and even looking into the most recalled brands in Study 2 such as Schick or Wix, could reveal different successes and failures through YouTube.

47 Different professionals and executives at a variety of businesses could be accessed in order to gain a more diverse understanding of how YouTube plays into the marketing plan. It could also be beneficial to release an anonymous survey to businesses rather than conducting in-depth interviews to receive answers that may be more truthful if respondents know that it is anonymous.

For future consumer research, looking into Gen X, ages 35-50, could reveal how a different demographic interacts with YouTube. While millennials are the heaviest user group, there is still a large market for advertisers to reach the older generation. As well, it would be beneficial to expand Study 2’s survey to other colleges across the United States to gain access to different regional preferences. More information could be revealed about how millennials interact with YouTube if the study was expanded upon and went more in depth on branding specifically. This could give insight into how millennials recall brands they may be presented with or reveal the positive and negative effects of brands presented on YouTube.

It is important to continue following YouTube as they release new original series and films and new features to their YouTube Red subscription. As Netflix and Hulu continue releasing new originals, it could be interesting to see how the consumers respond to YouTube originals comparatively. As well, it is important to continue following YouTube Red to see if it expands into new markets and signs on more networks to its platform. This could potentially push YouTube ahead of the competition if it became accessible to more consumers.

48 Afterward: My Journey

When I began my college search, I had no idea that I would be where I was today.

I knew that I was passionate about horseback riding, marketing, and digital media, and I wanted to take my passions and apply them to my studies and possibly even to my future career. If someone had told me that I would have chosen to go to school out-of-state to

Ohio University, been accepted to the Honors Tutorial College, spent a semester and two summers at my dream internship, and would graduate having completed a thesis, I probably would not have believed it.

Funny enough, I almost transferred out of Ohio University my freshman year. I didn’t feel like I had found my place in Athens and I wanted to take a break and travel home to Virginia. During my trip home, I realized that I needed to give OU another shot.

After coming back to campus from my weekend home, I was so glad that I decided to stay. I started getting involved with the equestrian team, organizations in the college business, and felt that I really started to form a great group of friends. I was able to participate in my first tutorial classes, learning all about Apple, business strategy, and entrepreneurship and how to write a business plan. In the spring of my freshman year, myself and my fellow HTC business freshman traveled to New York City to visit incubators and start-up companies to learn about entrepreneurship. That year, I realized that I wanted to take my business skills into a career in the equestrian industry to combine my two passions.

Sophomore year I participated in business cluster and learned a lot about working in a team and working under tight deadlines. That spring, I had the amazing opportunity to intern for Phelps Media Group in Wellington, FL where I spent 8 months learning

49 about public relations and marketing in the equestrian industry. I have a lot of great memories from that internship and I learned a lot about myself as a professional and an equestrian. I also started to discover my love for digital media through this internship. My favorite parts of my internship were getting to travel to shows in Chicago, Traverse City, and Pennsylvania and getting to interview with Olympic athletes.

I returned to Ohio University the fall of my junior year and jumped right back into my school work and my research tutorial. During that tutorial, I started diving into

YouTube and researching all that I could about the platform. As a user, I’m really passionate about YouTube and enjoy using the platform on a daily basis. I realized that there was a general lack of research about YouTube overall, especially when it pertained to branding and marketing. I decided to focus my research and my thesis on YouTube and how brand presence affects users and businesses. At the end of that semester,

Professor Dan Dahlen was recommended to me as a thesis advisor and he jumped on board when I talked to him about the idea for my thesis. We spent my spring tutorial focusing on planning out the thesis and gathering as much information as we could about

YouTube.

This year, my senior year, was focused on the primary research portions of my research and gathering everything together for the paper. I have had an amazing time working with Professor Dahlen and not only have I learned a lot about YouTube, but also about writing and conducting research. My hope is that this research can benefit the marketing industry in some way, and that people can expand upon it to further understand

YouTube as a business tool.

50 Appendix A: Interview Script

1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally)

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis?

3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of a media plan?

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as a platform and a brand?

51 Appendix B: Chris Ferrel Interview Transcription

Chris Ferrel - Director, Digital Strategy at The Richard's Group 1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally) Professionally, it's always been a foundational piece of at least our planning efforts, if not a significant part of our overall investment. For the better part of the last decade YouTube has certainly been on my radar as a marketer. I think personally, YouTube has certainly been a go-to place for all things digital video for, I guess since undergrad, long before smart phones in my pocket.

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ? I think the biggest difference is the mindset that you take when you're the user of YouTube versus a marketer on YouTube. And it all kind of boils down to the skip button. I think it's something that we as users, and myself included, use every single day. Every single day I skip and ad on YouTube. Every single day I hit that skip button and I love it. As a user it gives you power, it gives you the power of choice. It gives you the power to watch an ad or not, but for that as a user it's very conflicting to me as a marketer because this things that I love to use every day, that skip button, is one of the greatest challenges we have as marketers on YouTube. So this idea of creating ads for a skippable environment like YouTube becomes a common hot topic of effort as well as debate in terms of how we best approach that. So great question, and it really does boil down to that shift in mindset between users and marketers for the skip button.

3. Would you say you use the skip button 100% of the time? That's a great question. I would say it's in the high 90%. It’s hard to say that it's every single time. There are certainly ads that even me as a user, not even thinking about me as an advertiser, find myself watching past that five seconds. Sometimes I regret it completely, I get tricked into an Ovaltine ad or other times is actually something worthwhile and I learn something. Either a new product I wasn’t familiar with or at least get a laugh or a little piece of information out of it.

4. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube? How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of your media plan? I think one thing that makes our approach a little unique is rather than looking at our investment both in terms of resource investments, budgets, people, tools, rather than looking at it by channel - social or search or video - we take a little bit simpler of an approach and first look at our advertising efforts and budget by skippable ads and non- skippable ads. And the trend, or the important data points that we look at are what goes in

52 to this new era of skippable, digital advertising because the forced stuff, the forced 15 second pre-rolls and the forced pop-up display ads, they might still exist in some capacity, but by and large, some of the changes that IAB has come out with in terms of their ad portfolio, a lot of the forced view advertising is going away. So we as marketers, whether we like it or not, must learn to work with and embrace a skippable ad format. So the way that we break down this new era of skippable digital, it's really with four big things in mind - first three are probably not surprising at all, it's mobile, social, and video. As marketers, we are marketing to these individuals who are increasingly mobile first. For a growing population, mobile is the only way they're accessing internet. And when we look at things like social and video, those things aren't mutually exclusive. Facebook is I think 94% mobile right now, Snapchat is 100% mobile, and when you look at what we do on these social platforms, we increasingly watch a lot of video content. Whether we're scrolling through our Facebook and Instagram feeds, or watching almost exclusively video in Snapchat, those kind of three areas are things we start to think about in terms of how we approach digital advertising. And then the fourth thing that is the more challenging but also biggest opportunity for marketers is the fact that there is now user choice when it comes to user advertising. More and more, in terms of digital, you don't have to watch that ad. The power to swipe your thumb right past a Facebook ad, the power on YouTube to hit that skip button, it is the new norm. So when we get into looking at how to choose channels and choose, to your original question, what channels do we look at for social specifically, it's more about looking at that combination of mobile social video and user choice, which areas make sense to get eyeballs on a message that we're trying to get out in front of people, and more often than not, it happens to be in one of the two titans of skippable - which is Facebook advertising or Google and largely YouTube advertising in addition to paid search. It's remarkable that it doesn't really change as dramatically as you might expect that no matter the audience you're after, Google and Facebook repeatedly come up as primary digital marketing platforms. And so all that is owned by those companies. On the Facebook side, you start thinking about Facebook feeds, and Instagram and certainly Instagram stories increasingly. And on the Google side you think of search and you think of YouTube, both skippable and some of their newer forced view products - those six second bumper ads. Then you also are getting more and more into screen-less internet, like Google Home and digital voice assistants like that, and Amazon becoming another player in that. So, a roundabout way to answer your question, that's sort of how we deduce everything, and usually all signs point to a good chunk of dollars are going to Facebook and a good chunk of dollars are going to Google and YouTube.

5. Does your business utilize YouTube as part of the media plan? Do you have any knowledge of best practices or effective case histories where YouTube was utilized

53 as an integral part of the communications plan? Are there any instances where YouTube failed to produce results in a communications plan? The first part around best practices - there's a lot of support around why we should invest in formats like video in places like YouTube. At the highest level, it's very intuitive. Video gives you an opportunity to spend time with your brand that's longer than a lot of other types of formats. There a lot of different studies. Facebook has done them, YouTube has done them, it's very intuitive that the longer someone spends with your brand, especially voluntary time spent, in the case of skippable ads like YouTube, the longer someone spends with your brand the more your brand benefits. That's everything from the longer you spend with an ad, awareness goes up, ad recall goes up, consideration goes up, purchase intent goes up, but the trick with the skip flair is that not a lot of people stick around for very long to watch your full message. And so, you kind of start to form these best practices that really hone in on the first 3 to 5 seconds of your ad to breakthrough and to actually gain someone's attention in a way that makes someone want to stick around. A really simple basic way we look at is a couple of best practices. The first one is 'make me care in less than 5 seconds.' If you can't make someone care within the first few opening seconds of the ad, no one is going to stick around past those no matter how amazing the ad is after that 5 seconds. If you have two slow of a crescendo in your storyline or in your message, someone is going to hit that skip button. It's not a new concept at all. Andrew Stanton, an incredibly talented writer and director of Pixar has written books about it, done TED Talks about it, but he calls it the 'make me care hook.' They focus on a lot of Pixar movies that within in the first few seconds of a scene in a movie, you have to capture the viewers’ attention and give them a reason to care about that scene. You have to add something to the character development or the storyline that makes the viewer interested in that particular scene. Otherwise, they'll just tune out and look for the next scene on the radar. And I don't think it's all that different in a skippable environment like YouTube. The other best practice is 'give your audience a reason to stay.' If you convince them and they can care in the first five seconds, what's the reason to stick around and keep watching? There's a lot of different ways into that - you can work on a story arch that build on anticipation, or you can offer up a challenge. Whether that is more direct like an interactive ad or if it's more of a cerebral challenge, or you can offer up some sort of purpose or some sort of statement that might resonate with your audience in a bigger way than just simply selling your product. There's a lot of different kind of angles into that discussion. And then there's a lot of other best practices out there that the lists are endless with everything. From considering whether or not your volume is on or off, considering aspect ratio, which is different when you think of vertical environment like Instagram stories or Snapchat versus something that is more, at least today, a wider screen, 15x9 and YouTube. Those are more nuance and more details, but the overarching ones are make me care and then give me a reason to stay.

54 6. Instances where YouTube failed or wasn't effective? There are certainly times where the highest performing element of a given media plan was not YouTube. It's tough to ever say that I've seen an example where YouTube was a bad investment, but I think there are examples of whether it is a challenge with the way that you're targeting or the way that you are measuring success, or to the fact of your creative was not as powerful as it could have been in that environment. It can certainly look at, from a post campaign analysis, that YouTube underperformed. Probably the better example of that would be in the really early days of getting into TruView advertising when the skip button was brand new. What a lot of marketers noticed really quickly was repurposing their traditional TV 15 and 30 second spots into an environment that has a 5 second skip button does not work. Whether it's from a post-sales analysis or if you just do a simple brand-less study, if you go with a more traditional TV story arch where you have a crescendo to a key message or a grand reveal of a brand at the end of a spot, that just doesn’t work in a YouTube skippable environment. As marketers I think really quickly we learned it wasn't necessarily an indictment on the channel itself, it was the way that we were using that channel on YouTube. I think talking with a lot of marketers, they would often today that YouTube is one of the more effective video platforms. And to Google's credit, they've been very thoughtful in how they've evolved their advertising formats of both to not irritate users but also still be able to become effective tools for marketers to use. So, I think today it's a staple of most media plans and it's pretty rare where YouTube comes out as something that didn't work.

7. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube's brand? It's a story that's more about how Google has looked at YouTube as a source of revenue than it really is about how they've helped or hurt the platform itself. From a usability standpoint, you have Google introducing and integrating their Google search algorithms to be the back end of YouTube and it was one of the most powerful moves that they have done for YouTube as a platform from a user perspective. The number two search engine in the world is YouTube next to Google. And so that I think is just a sign that Google knows what they're doing when it comes to a key word world and I think for the advertising side of it, I think, it's probably no surprise at all but users of YouTube hate advertising. And I think we can speak to that anecdotally, every time we log in we get forced to look at an ad or even if we have to stare at that countdown 5-4-3-2--1, users by and large do not like advertising on the platform. However, there is an expectation for most that if I'm using something for free, someone else is paying for that ability for me to do that. So, to some degree advertising is tolerated and it's kind of up to the brand marketers to flip that script from the expectation of having a really negative experience with that to something positive. So, YouTube has done a good job at limiting the number of what I would say 'the worst offender.' This next year is the first year that Google is

55 doing away with 30 second forced view advertising on YouTube. Any ad longer than 15 seconds now has to have a skip button. I think it's also both a revenue driving reason but also a smart marketing reason as to the value of 6 second ads to help remind someone the key message, certainly increase frequency of a campaign that might be looking to other even more traditional platforms to get a longer form message across and then using YouTube 6 seconds ads as a way to reinforce that. So, I think YouTube has done a really nice job, and Google at large, at evolving YouTube's ad offerings, certainly it is much stronger today, both in terms of the types of ads as well as the targeting that Google has opened up for marketers than it was even 2 years ago or 3 years ago. So by and large it's probably been a very good thing. It'd be fascinating to speak to the original creators of YouTube and get their answer to that question.

8. Are you familiar with YouTube's recent "adpocolypse" and current scandals surrounding YouTube? (brands pulling ads, YouTube addressing creator scandal) If so - What is your reaction to it? Was your particular business affected by it? What do you think YouTube needs to do to address it in order to move forward and satisfy advertisers?

We, much like a lot of conversation in the industry, took note and were impacted in some ways, especially what was occurring largely in the UK around inappropriate content being ad powered. Our official agency point of view on that has been to look at the very new nature if you look at the grand scheme of advertising. There have not been very many years for Google to have perfected their ability to whitelist and blacklist certain types of content. The millions of hours that are uploaded to YouTube, it's certainly not unreasonable that even if you're 99% effective that there's some stuff that's going to slip through the cracks. On the other side I think what it did was send a wakeup call to the joint responsibility that not only Google has when it comes to identifying that type of content but also, we as advertisers need to have, in terms of accountability, just understanding exactly where our advertising is appearing. We have been pretty proactive on that as an agency. We worked really closely with Google to have a key network of whitelisted both content as well as specific YouTube channels, and similarly we have a large number of custom lists that blacklist, and we just simply don't run our advertising against. I think the brands that got into trouble were the brands that were trying to scale and drive efficiencies at all costs. So their ability to track which channels and pieces of video content their ads were appearing before was looser and less know and so therefore opened up the opportunity for their ads to appear in front of some pretty questionable and inappropriate content. So I think that the large more short answer to your question is that it's a joint responsibility. I think we'll keep becoming impacted by it. I think the good news is that the third-party companies like Mode and Integral Ad Science have developed some pretty powerful tools that allow you to not only track bot activity or fraud, but will

56 all start to track a more third-party verification of the types of content that your stuff is going in front of. I'm hopeful that those types of technologies will keep evolving and will have more transparency and more understanding around how and where our ads are placed. It's really a joint responsibility between agency partners, brands themselves, and Google to all kind of work together to make sure that we truly understand what types of content our ads are appearing in front of.

9. Was it simple to whitelist or blacklist or complicated? It's certainly some hard work. It's not impossible by any means. It also comes sometimes at the cost of efficiencies in terms of your ability to have a lost cost per thousand impression number. You start to make some concessions and it's just sort of a matter of how much you're willing to give up efficiency in terms of costs to better protect your brand. So it's just a little bit of a balancing act because obviously the fewer channels and the fewer types of video and the fewer types of content that you're willing to put your ad in front of, the more custom that targeting is and so therefore the more expensive it's going to be to place those ads. Without being able to dive too deep in the details, we're pretty comfortable with having a large, healthy enough list of content targeting and channel targeting while not affecting our overall CPMs too much, but at the same time, feeling like we are very very comfortable with the types of content that our advertisements appear I front of. So it's certainly a process and it's a partnership with Google. We certainly look to them as a key partner in this, we're not doing it in a vacuum. We're working really closely with them hand-in-hand, to not only work with them from a YouTube standpoint but their broader advertising portfolio into search and display.

10. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? It's a great question. My answer is closely related to a talk I'm giving at South by Southwest this year in just a little under a month. And I think the way that Google and YouTube are going to win in the sort of next era of marketing is going to come down to what I'm calling the 'screen-less internet,' largely powered by digital voice assistance but it's going to be Google if you're looking at their sort of competitive landscape. They're ability to win in our screen-less internet interactions. They're already pretty well poised to do some interesting things with the growing success of Google Home, but they have a big big competitor in the space with Amazon and Echo to really carve out a space in the marketplace that's as dominant as they have been with YouTube. Now the good news for Google is their history of being able to develop the most advanced keyword-based search engine for digital devices with screens, I think will translate well when they start to look at how to create experiences where there is no screen involved, when it's more national

57 language, voice powered interaction. So, they seem pretty well positioned, them and I think Amazon are going to have an interesting next five years and really advancing and involving voice related technology. And I think you'll see some nice interplay between Google voice activated, Google Home like experiences and YouTube content if you're able to pull up instantly that one specific step number 5 of 25 on 'how do I change a car tire?' That's pretty useful to be able to have that voice interaction and pull up that exact point in time of that video content on your phone or on your tablet. So I think there will be some really nice use cases where you'll see complimentary interplay between voice activated screen-less internet and our more comfortable smartphone, mobile first driven video. It's going to be interesting because there's probably factors involved that aren't on my radar yet that are going to be total curveballs in the whole equation.

11. Do you envision ads playing into screen-less internet as if they played into a YouTube video? For example, you ask a question and an ad plays prior to answering a question. So to a degree, yes. I don't think it's going to be as intrusive as the example you just laid out, but it will be a little bit more integrated into the experience itself or it will be more of a post-content interaction. So the examples would more classically, if it's a shopping environment, 'Hey Google, order more toothpaste' and Google comes back and says, 'Okay I can order a brand like Colgate, will that work?' And you'll say sure. So something like that where you're paying for that placement. I could also see more of a world where say a DIY home improvement podcast or maybe a video plays for you and at the end of that piece of content, it would say 'brought to you by the Home Depot.' There's even this resurgence of pneumonic devices and even new era jingles that I think will play a role in screen-less internet. There's an author that talked about this idea of on digital screens, you have very well-known icons in terms of a brand icon or in terms of a button on a page. In a screen-less world, for the screen-less internet, you'll have ear-cons, where pneumonic devices, little earworms would activate an action or perhaps even an ad of some kind. You can think of certain brands that it plays really nicely into, your Intel, but there are other brands that are going to have to figure out what their little 'ear-con' is.

58 Appendix C: Danny Veech Interview Transcription

Danny Veech – Account Coordinator at Social Within 1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally) I would say since it came out. I've been familiar with it since then I would say.

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis? Like I've said personally, I've known about it since it came out. I used it for free music, I used it for non-productive things. It wasn't that much, I wasn’t doing it every day, I wasn't doing it frequently, it was just when I needed to download a new CD I would go and get the YouTube link and download it to an mp4. That was back in the good ol' days when you had to do that! I'd say around high school, I think 2009, that's when my engagement started going up significantly. And then college and since my freshman year of college it's been at an all-time high. And now I'm spending at least an hour and a half on it every single day personally, either watching a munchies pizza show or watching a vlogger like Casey Neistat or Gary V. I'm always on YouTube. I don't really consider YouTube a social, but if I had to pick a social media I spend the most time on, it is certainly YouTube. But of course I'm not interacting with other people when I use it. I go straight to YouTube each time. My app layout on my phone is the perfect spot for my thumb to hit, and all of my other social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, they're all my top row, and YouTube is on the fourth row so it's the perfect hit for a thumb. Like I said, I'm always on it. If I go for a run I put a Casey Neistat 20-minute video on and put my headphones on and then I go for a run. Now with that, the other day I was looking up how to fix my blinds. I have these stupid vertical blinds, so I was trying to do that, so it’s also how-to videos, or just wasting my free time in a non-productive way. Professionally, on the other hand, I use it as a place to store videos for all of our other content. Just to give you a little background of what I do exactly - I do media buying basically. Our focus is Facebook, but YouTube is a good house for us to store content and be able to pull it and clip it to use videos into Facebook stuff. No one ever puts a YouTube link in their Facebook because native video is king, uploading video directly to Facebook. It looks cleaner. Other than that, professionally, at work I use it for podcasting or webinars. I don't like podcasts at all, I like watching what I'm hearing. When I'm strictly listening to something I move all over the place not even focusing on listening, I'm reading what else is going on. Those are my two ways of using YouTube personally and professionally.

59 3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of a media plan? For advertising, strictly in the terms of me doing my job, Facebook is king. They have the best algorithm, they track your pixels, they track all of your purchases, they have the best reach, they have the best everything. Everyone is trying to copy that, but theirs is so superior, and they're always coming out with new stuff. Their new analytics tool is beautiful, and they keep making changes to that, so Facebook is king. By far #1. And you can tag Instagram along with that technically. Twitter is pretty useless, honestly, when it comes to advertising. Snapchat is disappointing. You can use it more for prospecting but anything for targeting it's so hard. They're working on improving it but right now it's like their platform is so poor that they had a promo last month that was if you spend $10,000 in 14 days on Snapchat, they would give you a $3,000 credit for ads. It's like they're basically giving their ad money away. But it's a disappoint. And then Pinterest I'm going to wrap into it because Pinterest I would say has the most potential. I've seen a lot of success with the four clients I have on it, but it still has a ways to go, and that's the newest of the social media platforms for advertising. But overall, it's very good it just needs to mature. YouTube from an advertising standpoint I can't really speak on it that much. From a different point of view, Twitter, I think, customer service is what they should be there for - just lighthearted stuff. Just another place to plug their blog or interact more with their consumers or their people. Snapchat I am still trying to figure out a business' place on that. I don't understand companies that have Snapchat accounts. I guess I understand the reason they would buy stories or articles, or sponsored filters, other than that I just don't know why. The best thing that any advertiser has done on Snapchat was when Gatorade, I think two Super Bowls ago, they did the face filter and it was a major success. That was probably best ever on the app. Pinterest is growing, it's just great because people go on Pinterest with the intention of buying something. People go on Facebook to see what their friends are doing, but people go on Pinterest to see what outfits they need to buy so Pinterest is cool. YouTube's place is 'content is king.' If you want your brand to be a brand and not just a t-shirt company, you have to have content, especially where video is the most successful. Basically, all of my ads are video. YouTube is really important to be able to have that arm and to be able to tell stories with your brand through video and in an engaging way. So YouTube is very valuable. That’s how I would evaluate it not counting its advertising.

60 I know you said media plan, but I want to make sure we're on the same page here. Yes, we've used it in our media plan, our clients have used it in their media plan. With that being said, that media plan, I don't use that in my media buying strategy. So we've got two different things here - media planning and media buying. Now our clients and our actual company do some media buying with YouTube. We just had a client in town like two weeks ago, we were just kind of talking about their 2018 goals and plans, where we're going to run, where are they going to run, and what we can do to help them. It was a brainstorming session, nobody was wrong, we put everything on the board. We started talking about how YouTube plays an important role in their prospecting plans. Trying to introduce people into the funnel. They found that their affiliate marketing, so when you get, say a vlogger, to review your product, you make 28 times your investment back in sales. So say you give this guy $100 to talk about your headphones for example, this company would then experience $2,800 in sales. So affiliate marketing, and figuring out the strategy for that, so for example, that is best case scenario. Some of their affiliates were only bringing in 1 or 2 times their investment, and they were trying to figure out why. These people that weren't making money were just talking about the product so wrong, they were boring. When building your plan out, it's getting the right affiliates. So that's a best practice and something that’s very effective, being able to find the right affiliates that are in your market, not just going to someone that happens to have 100,000 subscribers and only four of them relate to your product and what your brand does. Instead having someone that has 20,000 subscribers and has a crazy loyal base where people actually go and listen to what they do. Right there, that's a good way of doing it. If I had to pick a few brands off the top of my head that are just amazing at YouTube, 100% would say Yeti. They have some of the best video content as a company. They do extremely well, and it's bigger than their product. It's not like we're sitting there hearing about their product, Yeti this and Yeti that, it's just guys living their daily lives and getting their stories told and they happen to use Yeti products. That's how they've created that cult following, being able to produce that content. I would say that's my prime example of what a company should be on YouTube. Best practices, I can't speak on as much, I don't want to give you any false information. The affiliate marketing is the only thing I can really speak to.

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as a platform and a brand? It has 100% helped it entirely. The whole video world and how we use video would be completely different if Google did not acquire YouTube. It would just be completely different. We would be taking forever to try and find our video. I mean that could have possibly happened, they could have maybe figured it out. But Google has definitely made searching for things in general way more beneficial. So like I said, the other day when I typed in, I Googled it first I didn’t even go to YouTube, but I Googled 'how to fix vertical

61 blinds' and a video popped up on Google. And then I went to YouTube from there. So that's one way I get to YouTube sometimes. The whole game would just be completely different. YouTube would not make any money - well they maybe would have made a quarter of the money. I imagine that it's a ton of money that they make, at least billions. And that just wouldn’t have happened without Google. Google is amazing with their advertising. So YouTube as a brand would be a completely different ball game. It seems like when Google touches anything it kind of works out. Which isn't true, they've had tons of failures, but they've also had loads of successes. But I think the fact that Google does own YouTube has significantly helped them be what they are today.

6. Are you familiar with YouTube's recent "adpocolypse" and the current scandals surrounding ads being in front of inappropriate content? If so - What is your reaction to it? Was your particular business affected by it? What do you think YouTube needs to do to address it in order to move forward and satisfy advertisers? Honestly, it doesn't really affect me as an advertiser. It's kind of all, similar to the Facebook thing, that algorithm change that happened, everyone thought the world was going to shut down for a second. So Facebook's algorithm change, they said they were going to slow down the pace that you get interacted with businesses, they were going to make it more of a family and friends thing. They are making the overall platform for you better, you're going to spend less time on Facebook but the time you do spend on it is going to be significantly better. So they're trying to make the Facebook experience better for the consumer, so the only people that keep them alive. So they probably lost a significant amount of money, their stock dropped 4% over the course of a week and a half following that news. So they took a big hit from it but the long game, that's incredibly healthy for them. Because they'll have people on Facebook, and that's what makes Facebook, Facebook. For YouTube, as an advertiser, I would be grateful that YouTube is trying to do their due diligence to make sure my ads are being delivered in places that reflect my brand appropriately. Even if you could skip that ad in five seconds, you still have the potential of someone taking a screen shot of your ad with the headline of the YouTube video being, for example, something completely degrading and posting that with your brand being affiliated with that. For advertisers, of course I would be pissed off in the terms of it probably would cost more to reach 1,000 people now, which happens. But I would rather spend more money on appropriate content than waste dollars and destroy my brand on inappropriate content. I think people kind of overreacted to that - like vloggers. I know Casey Neistat complains about it all the time. However, YouTube gets to pick what videos make money, so they aren't just giving money away. YouTube doesn't have to give Casey Neistat money, then guess who gets to keep that money? YouTube. That's not what I think this was, I don't think it was a selfish decision by YouTube, I just think YouTube wanted the best for their advertisers and best for their

62 users. YouTube is even looking out for brands. They're looking out for the company's potential to consumers.

7. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? The impact is unbelievable. They have changed everything. YouTube may be one of the main reasons why we're spending so much time watching videos on our phones and have so much engagement on our phones. They could be anyway. They were one of the first apps on the iPhone, and so once everyone had the power to get a smartphone, YouTube was there and mobile. That was the inception of spending tons of time on mobile devices. Which, parents now are yelling about it for their kids. But parents were 30-year-old little kids basically. I remember my dad, he got his first iPhone and we were at a soccer tournament. He handed it to me and that game PapiJump was on it, and the next thing we went to was YouTube, and of course the video took forever to load, but I think that's how it has changed the industry of video consumption. It's just made watching stuff so accessible. You see all these crazy success stories about children in India creating their own generators strictly off of watching YouTube videos. So my industry in advertising, they've given us more reach. It's been able to give our company a way of telling stories. Then personally, they've changed the consumer behavior of how we do things. There's always a place to get better, but sometimes change, we all know when dramatic changes it can be awful, for example the new Snapchat update. I don't use Snapchat anymore at all. So you don't want them to change like that. YouTube Red, I've never done it, but I'm going to look into that today, and that's another was that they are reiterating themselves. They have 'Live,' they're doing all the great things to make it accessible for people to watch videos and they're making things load faster. They're making all of this happen. I think they should just keep doing what they're doing. If they change anything I couldn't even tell them what to change, it's the best platform ever. I do think as a brand, and as a company, they're always the non-bias group. I couldn't even tell you the name of YouTube's CEO, which is amazingly sad because I know a lot of company's CEOs. But I couldn't tell you who YouTube's is. But maybe that's a good thing, they've stayed in the back seat and have let the platform do the talking. But I don't want to see any huge change happen, I want them to keep being a free platform where anyone with any sort of internet connection can go and learn or watch and do anything.

63 Appendix D: Bo Reisinger Interview Transcription

Bo Reisinger – Senior Account Executive at Hart Inc. 1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally) I've probably been aware of YouTube going on 10-11 years. When I was in college it wasn't as prolific or as extensive as it is now, so definitely more use as the years go on and obviously more professionally than personally.

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis? Professional is probably easiest because I don't really interact with it too much personally. From a professional perspective, I'm usually checking up on clients, anything that we are either working through with them in terms of recommendations or point of view towards best use and best outcomes for their content. But also going through competitive sets and seeing what is going on in the market or what their competitors are doing directly and being able to provide, again, a perspective and a report back to anything that could impact our strategy or the content we're putting together. Again, personally, because I have young children now, that’s pretty much where I interact with it. I don't use it much personally but if my kids are looking to watch a quick little video or my little boy wants to watch some football highlights that's where I go.

3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of a media plan? It really does start with that situational analysis. We have to go from 'Is this a business to business client, or business to consumer, or both?' And then we really have to start at the top level for our strategy and ask ourselves what is the channel role and purpose that aligns to our business objective or strategy. So is it informational, is it educational, are we creating new content to create a conversation around maybe trends or things that are happening in the market. We want to show off a core competency or a market advantage, but we start to build out which channels make the most sense, again, dependent upon if the client is a business to business, business to consumer, or both. And then what is our strategy and our business objective. And then we'll go deep dive into the role and purpose of each channel.

64 I won't use exact cases or current clients, but in my opinion from a best practices perspective, again it goes back to the strategy, and what are the objectives we're trying to achieve. So if it is new content that we've created, that we want our consumer or audience to engage with, we have to determine if we are buying space that we want to basically advertise or market ourselves. So if we have created say a 30 second TV spot, and in the planning of that spot, after it rolls out, do we cut it down and build a 15 second one, do we build a 10 or now the hot trend of these 6 second ads that we can grab someone's attention with a clear message and call to action quick enough. Gieco does a great example of the un-skippable ads. The versions where they're crushing the ad into a shorter spot to get your attention or keep you there, those are really good examples, and you can see by the number of hits, the awards, that they get their message across and they do it in an entertaining way and engaging way. And that's what we want to see. So for example if the client has something to do with manufacturing or a product that goes on a home or in your car, there's content that we will create specifically to grab our specific audience or our segments that, maybe they are 'do it for me' people, maybe they're 'do it yourself' people, but they're tutorials, or they're informational how-tos, that is where we start to leverage if people are engaging with it, how long are they staying with it, are they coming back. Those kind of metrics and KPIs that we'll establish before we launch any kind of a campaign, I haven't seen a lot where it wasn't successful, but that is also dependent on that integrated strategy and the other ways you're communicating. Because a lot of times, these videos are also placed on say a landing page, or a corporate website, so we have to be able to delineate who is actually going straight to YouTube, or who is actually clinking on a link from our site to engage with that video.

Would you say you post your clients content more directly to YouTube and drive content through the site itself, or would you say you go more external and post it on a site or a social media and drive people to YouTube through that? Most of the time, again this isn't client-centric, but when a campaign is out together, it again goes back to that strategy and what the goals and objectives are. So most of the time, we aren't driving anybody straight to YouTube. We will embed content either in the landing page that is campaign centric, or their hub website for corporate. And then obviously, that's where YouTube becomes a brand almost repository of content. A lot of people aren't really going to go, unless you're a huge brand like say RedBull or Nike where people want to dig into the content that you have on your brand pages. But that's a place where we will make sure the content exists, but it's kind of where it's housed, not really where it's placed or direct interaction. That's either on a campaign page or a corporate site.

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as a platform and a brand?

65 Professionally, I haven't seen any real issues with it, clients have never been concerned with it. I think that because they have the backing of that kind of a giant, that's where YouTube has that potential to be much more prominent in things like their creating unique content, their live-streaming. Even some of the accessibility, people who are creating their own channels and are trying to build an identity or a brand out of YouTube through that backing is big. It's becoming a much larger platform than where you go to just look for a couple of videos. People are building businesses around them, getting enough subscribers where marketers and advertisers want to utilize them because their audience is into that kind of content. And people are making money off of that. But in terms of the Google acquisition, I just think it's better all around, in terms of the breadth and opportunity that can come from YouTube and earning a part of that competitive set with Amazon and Facebook.

6. Are you familiar with YouTube's recent "adpocolypse" and the current scandals surrounding ads being in front of inappropriate content? If so - What is your reaction to it? Was your particular business affected by it? What do you think YouTube needs to do to address it in order to move forward and satisfy advertisers? That's a big issue. Clients, especially if we want to buy space or advertise on YouTube, they are concerned with if it would propagate around their message and around their brand. That’s definitely, I know, something that is being addressed by YouTube. But it's still a concern, and that's why a lot of times we don't go straight to YouTube, we go to places we can control. So especially in a programmatic buy, or re-targeting, when we're placing media we want to make sure that everything is as self-contained as we can and make it a little bit more controlled. But I'm definitely aware and it's definitely a big part of the conversation. We weren't directly affected by it where we had to mitigate any circumstances or put out any fires or have to get a PR message included. But it's just because people see it on TV, people see it in their daily check-in on the internet flow, Twitter especially, where things are called out in real time. They bring it up, and they're aware, and they want to sound like they're aware of all considerations, but that's a big part of what I do in my role as a partner, to make sure we're addressing that. I don't have any specific recommendations, but in my opinion it's kind of par for the course across all social platforms right now. It's one of those things where the medium is meant to be expressive, it's meant to be open-ended if you will where anybody can kind of update or place content. It's your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube comments, things like that, how can we police the super negativity, where people are a little bit off the rails, versus somebody just sharing an opinion. That's a really subjective conversation and something that I think should be addressed. It's a little bit double-edged with these platforms.

66 7. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? Like I alluded to, this is again in my opinion, what I see is with the ability for people or companies to actually create an identity through YouTube, create a brand where they are getting subscribers, they're providing relevant content that a number of people are into across all genres or industries, and then marketers and advertisers and other brands are taking notice to how large some of these subscriptions and these quote-on-quote brands or YouTube stars are getting. That allows us to take a deeper dive into say, an influencer strategy. Now are there people, say you're really into cars and you're maybe a filter company, or where you can make your car all tricked out things like that, when you do your segmentation and your situational analysis, you've got to establish a position as a brand. You know who your demographics are and who your audience is, so you can actually create a strategy around these platforms where people have large user base that fits your target. And then it allows us to almost do more of a deep dive into how to reach these people with relevant content that they aren't going to click away from. Maybe it's more native, it actually fits into what that content is and our product or our message has a position that still fits there. It will resonate more, it's actually meeting the exact target that we want to hit, and it's all a part of an integrated approach. So we aren't just saying, 'We're going to put your video on YouTube,' we're actually going to do an audit of YouTube, find influencers that makes sense to connect with your brand and our brand to that audience. So it allows us to cast a little bit of a tighter net than going too broad and missing.

67 Appendix E: Cheryl Harrison Interview Transcription

Cheryl Harrison – Principal at Speech Bubble PR 1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally) Probably since around the beginning of YouTube, so at least 10 years.

2. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis? I use YouTube personally, frequently I use it, for Live Streaming music, I use it to watch video game live-streamers, and then the regular stupid cat videos and other such videos that we all pass around on YouTube. I consume a lot of media on YouTube and then professionally I run a PR agency, so we do produce video content for our clients primarily for Facebook and Instagram purposes, but we always put that content on YouTube as well even though that's not a primary channel for us with any of our current clients.

Can you expand upon your use of YouTube for gaming? I blame my fiancé for that, but he got really into watching other people play video games, which I thought was really weird because I don’t really understand the point of it, but he introduced me to a couple of streamers that are pretty entertaining and engaging. I'm actually in the process of trying to put together a YouTube livestream channel for board gaming. It doesn’t exist yet, it's probably about another month or two before I'm going to get to that so I'm also kind of learning more about the process of setting up a quality livestream and turning that into a little side business. There's one streamer we watch pretty much every day who, I mean, I watch this girl make $2,000-3,000 a night playing video games. So I thought, 'I play board games every day, if I can make even $50 that would be a good day!' Her channel is One Shot Girl, her name is Julie and she's in Cincinnati. She's got half a million subscribers on her YouTube channel and probably has 2,000-3,000 people watching her every night. She plays a game called Fortnite, and Player Unknown's Battlegrounds are the two that we mostly watch but she plays other puzzle games and horror games too.

3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of a media plan? 4. Does you frequently use YouTube as part of a media plan? Do you have any knowledge of best practices or effective case histories where YouTube was utilized as an integral part of the plan? Are there any instances where YouTube failed to produce results in a media plan?

68 So for us, we're a super small company, there are only two of us and we've got about 20 clients that we manage their social media for. So we have to be very careful with how we allocate our resources just because we don't have a lot of them. We put a lot of time and effort into photography and copywriting at opposed to video creation just because that's kind of where our skillsets are stronger. So we do create video content just because, in our experience, Facebook will kind of prioritize that type of content, so even if it's not the most well-produced video in the world, it will still help us on that platform where we're more active. But we just don't, because it's kind of thrown together, it doesn't tend to be as focused for YouTube to be a focus for us. We're not trying to create a big YouTube following for our clients because it just doesn't seem to be the nature of most of the business we work with.

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as a platform and a brand? I think it's helped it if anything. I honestly don't think most people realize that Google owns YouTube, and by them having a clear incentive to push YouTube I think google search results prioritize YouTube videos as well. So I think it's probably led more people to find video content on YouTube through Google and I've never personally had anyone have any negative impression of YouTube because of that connection.

69 because people are going to freak out at you otherwise. It might not be a great long-term thing but I think we're definitely in that time for the moment anyway.

7. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? I think that as long as they continue to foster good content, which they have really good relationships with a lot of their content producers who aren't bringing them negative publicity. I think that will be key because everyone is in the content game now, every streaming app, every social network is trying to have the best content out there and having a huge platform with terrible content is never going to work in the long-term. So I think they really need to focus on continuing to work with content creators and make sure that YouTube is the place that people want to put their content above Facebook and above Twitch and other possibly platforms.

70 Appendix F: Tracey McCormack Interview Transcription

Tracey McCormack – Local sales manager at Fox LA 1. You mentioned you wanted to touch on brand safety before you had to go, so can you touch on that a bit first and how YouTube is intertwined with brand safety for advertisers? As you know, they certainly have grown quite a bit. Owned by Google, and now when you do a search for something a video portion comes up first. That’s how important video is to the user experience which the people in television, we've known that video was important since the '50s, if you understand what I mean. So now even Google search, video is the first thing that pops up. Listen, television is regulated by the FCC. And as it relates to broadcasting, we have a responsibility to provide safe, high quality and informative news programming. The reason that the FCC gives us the license is so that we can provide information that the community needs. In between that we're allowed to run programming, but it has to be entertainment programming. But it has to be of a certain quality, it has to be of a certain standard, there are several words you may not say on broadcast television. And so the internet has become such a pervasive and ubiquitous medium in our lives, but for some reason has not been put to the same standards. Everybody at the end of the day is all targeting the same 500 advertisers, unless you're a subscription service like SVOD, or a transactional video on demand like iTunes, unless you're paying for those, everybody is going after the same 500 advertisers. The advertising business is like 20% of our country's entire GDP, and those advertisers should be protected, and the consumer should be protected. We've been involved in television broadcasting, we have been involved in brand safety, not only has it been important, advertisers brand safety, not only has it been important to our brand, it's required by the FCC. They have these influencers now, some of them with the largest audiences, like PewDiePie with 740 some million subscribers, to what is now called micro-influencers with 250,000 subscribers and everywhere in between. But nobody is watching what they are doing and whatever Google has decided to start doing, starting last year or two years ago in terms of ensuring the ads are being run next to videos that is not content that is inappropriate and that doesn’t have KKK messages and pornography. These guys, these influencers are cursing their heads off. In television, we take a beer advertisement, and we have to make sure that the audience that is watching that program is 70% over the age of 21. So a beer can only advertise to adults 21+, and the programs that advertise in have to reach an audience of over 70% 21. But these influencers are allowed to curse, and make anti-Semitic remarks, and do whatever they want on the free internet, and the advertisers are not getting protected. It's going to hurt much bigger than YouTube in the end. It's hurting consumers and it's hurting advertisers. These advertisers pulled out of YouTube and Google ads because they're not safe and it's bad for everyone all the way around. I'm all for freedom of the press, I am all for people being able to say and do what

71 they want on the internet when it's free, and I'm all for net-neutrality, personally, but I think the brands, these 500 national advertisers, are the backbone of a big piece of our gross domestic product, and they deserve to be protected, and somebody has got to watch out for their benefit.

2. In your opinion, what do you think needs to be done moving forward? YouTube, when this first happened, they put in an algorithm that would alert them to anybody that used the words 'rape,' war,' 'kkk,' things like that. Well the problem with that is that the news uses those words on television every single day. For example, there is a millennial news influencer on YouTube called Phil DeFranco. Phil used to have 8 million subscribers now he has around 6 million subscribers, but he does the news every day. He does news and his version of news is very popular against millennials. We wish we had 8 million people watching, 80% of his audience comes back and watches every day. And they're young. We would die to have that many people watching on a local television basis, watching our news. And he delivers the news in a way that is super authentic and genuine. But in the news broadcast he has to use the word 'war' if he's talking about Syria. He has to be able to use the word 'rape' if he's talking about something that happened on a college campus. He has to be able to use the word 'kkk' if he's talking about a protest or something that happened in Williamsburg, VA or whatever. So if the news on television is able to use those, then they have to be able to use those words as well. So that algorithm, that was not a great idea. I think it was a good first start and I have no idea, to answer your questions, how they're going to police a place where they don't even know how many websites there are in the world. Nobody even really has a number because they go up and down every day. And all over the world. And so we've enabled this massive pervasive information super highway. Imagine it a super highway of road that could go anywhere all over the world, but no police and no rules and no street signs and no control. I don't think it's as bad as no control, I think there's something in place, but I feel like something has to get done. And how about parents? They have no idea that, do you know, if you type the word 'Nickelodeon' with a mistake in such a way, it comes up to a porn site. Or if YouTube type 'Disney' with the 's' and 'n' backwards it comes up to a porn site. Years ago, this is an old statistic, but years ago, they used to say that more than 90% of the internet was pornography. And I don't know what that statistic is now, but I bet it's still huge. I don't think it's 90% but I bet it's still huge. Again, I'm all for freedom of press and people being able to buy what they want or do what they want, but, personally, there's got to be some protection for parents and for young people. It's got to be governed in some way. It's a huge, massive responsibility just governing television. If we make a mistake, there are rules about federal candidates because the FCC gives us the license to broadcast information. We have to give fair and equal time to every federal candidate that's running. Just because Hillary Clinton has more money than Bernie Sanders, we have to give them all the same rates and all the same air time. Well that

72 doesn't happen, I don't know that those rules are the same in place now. It's my understanding that, a political protection period is coming up soon, that's what it's called, in April for the primary. And it's my understanding that the internet is going to face much tougher rules. I have no looked into what they are, but they should have to face those rules. If you're going to broadcast, which it's what they are, they're broadcasters. If they're broadcasters, they should have to have the same rules as broadcasting on television.

3. Out of curiosity, let's say any news station wanted to sponsor content or put some type of content out through YouTube. If you wanted to put content out on TV, you have FCC regulations, but on YouTube there's a lot less. Do you have more freedom online? So cable, which you pay for, has a lot looser rules than broadcasting. So remember, broadcasting is what used to be called '13 UHF,' that was before we went digital, we used to call them 'UHF channels' which stood for 'ultra-high frequency.' Those 13 channels are what you get over the air without a cable or satellite. But cable or satellite, because you pay for those channels and because you can pick and block what you want, they have different rules. There's way more nudity, and then you get into a whole other thing which is a premium service like HBO. What they do on HBO we cannot do anywhere near that on free broadcast television. So YouTube has it's YouTube Red, and now they have YouTube TV. Those are paid subscriptions. And when people have to pay, the rules are a lot looser. They can't possibly make people pay and then have to have the same rules as broadcasting. Once it becomes free like YouTube, not YouTube Red and not YouTube TV, YouTube is free, and it's absolutely a broadcaster, reaching more people than broadcast TV with none of the same rules that we face. But once they start paying a subscription, the rules come off the table. I get that if you want to put PewDiePie and let him curse and say the things he had said that made Disney dump him like a hot potato, you want to be able to say that stuff, then it should have to be for a paid subscription. I don't know, I could talk out of either side of my mouth out of that, I don't know. Maybe there should be some warning, maybe there should be a 10 second red pre-roll that says something. You go to a movie, because it's a public broadcast, you go to a movie and watch a trailer, and it says in a big green box, 'this trailer is not appropriate for all audiences, this has been rated PG-13.' We still have R-rated movies that you have to be 17 to get into, but YouTube, you can type in youtube.com, and get anything you want without a rating, without a warning. Maybe everything that is explicit content has to have a big red 5 second what we call billboard that says, 'there is going to be content that is inappropriate.' For Facebook you have to be 13 to have an account. Maybe you have to be 13 to have an account on YouTube, but you know some kid is just going to lie. All of my nieces and nephews have fake accounts on Facebook that say they're 25. Who knows what these kids stumble on. It's all become a total free for all. It's the wild west out there and they have to prey on advertisers. But those advertisers are going to be in peril with their brands. And there is no one protecting them or policing them. This is personal, these

73 are not the opinions of Fox broadcasting or Fox television, these are strictly my opinions, but I'm all about the fact that what we pay for our taxes should somehow be protecting advertisers. The FCC has to expand on some of this stuff. Look what's happened with 'fake news' and Facebook and all kinds of ads like misinformation. They're all worried about how it's unfairly impacted the election. But they should be way more concerned about type of content that is out there. I think it's dangerous but it's only growing. That train is not going in another direction. That train is going to keep moving forward and there's going to be more and more of it. Less and less people are watching broadcast television. No matter what content we put up there it's really just about news and live sports. Once YouTube makes a deal with the NFL, just like Twitter has made deals to stream live NBA games and Facebook is doing the same thing. Facebook, with its 2 billion users, has the ability to be the largest broadcaster in the world. Right now, the Facebook Watch program is full of junk videos that people are putting up there. But imagine if they get a show like 'Empire' that they could put on Facebook, they could legitimately be the largest broadcaster in the world. And right now, with all of the money on the internet, Google and Facebook are getting 90% of it. So when you hear about the $172 billion being spent in digital advertising, 90% of that is Facebook and Google, including YouTube. So with search and video and mobile and display, programmatic advertising, all of that, Google and Facebook, the rest of it is all just peanuts for everyone else. So once Facebook starts making television programs, once they get an 'Empire' or football or the World Cup, it's going to change the game incredibly.

4. How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis? All day, every day. I got new Apple earbuds, and I couldn't figure out how to pair them, so I went to YouTube to figure out how. And in one second there was an ad, interestingly enough, for cheaper earbuds. And then of course in 30 seconds I watched the entire thing. I mean it's all a 'how-to.' I'm not watching content so much, but I am checking people out, pulling up videos that we need. We sell the NFL here and we're trying to make an NFL reel for our advertisers, a sizzle real if you will. And we must have looked at one hundred videos on YouTube trying to figure out what we want. So every day, all day, professionally and personally I'm using it. As should most people be, I'm sure they are.

5. What, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? It's all about content. That’s what YouTube TV and YouTube Red are all about. It's all about content. There's an article recently, I want to say it was in AdAge, where Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, they're spending billions of dollars, they've committed billions to original content. Somebody is going to make a 'Handmaids Tale.' Now for every 'handmaids Tale,' there's 500 shows nobody has ever heard of. But the 'Ozark' and the

74 'Handmaids Tale' and the 'Stranger Things' and the '13 Reasons Why', and Facebook is going to make theirs too. It's everybody is in the same boat. The platform really is agnostic now, we are platform agnostic. Meaning, people will watch content on YouTube, on Facebook, on broadcast television, Amazon Prime, anywhere they want, as long as the content is good and relevant, and people are talking about it. That's what this is all about. It's all about the quality of the content.

75 Appendix G: Nina Bressau Interview Transcription

Nina Bressau – Senior Strategist at The Integer Group 1. How long have you been familiar with/used YouTube? (either personally and/or professionally) / How does your personal vs professional interactions with YouTube differ on a daily basis? I've been familiar with it for a long time, I don't know if I can estimate the years. I guess when it first came out, a little under ten years maybe. I use it to watch videos for personal use sometimes, not too often, I have the app on my Apple TV, and I don't really use it professionally ever.

2. Would you say you are going directly to YouTube for content or following a link? Both. I would say, often content links back to YouTube, so I don't necessarily have to go on the site. I do, depending on what I search, I typically don't tend to watch videos when I look for an answer. I tend to look on Google for more written content. But I do go on the app on my Apple TV.

3. How do you evaluate the different digital channels for advertising i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. How do you determine which of these sites are going to be a part of a media plan? Before my current job, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So YouTube, and social media in general is very limited. So that's why I may have less interaction than others. I wouldn't say I wouldn't consider it. I work in retail now but my role is more research. So I might use YouTube for research purposes or seeing what is out there more so than suggesting it for a media plan.

4. Does you frequently use YouTube as part of a media plan? Do you have any knowledge of best practices or effective case histories where YouTube was utilized as an integral part of the plan? Are there any instances where YouTube failed to produce results in a media plan? I definitely think it can be very successful in creating awareness just because it does link back to Google, it comes up on search, often it's a good place to host all of your videos or recorded content to link back to. I think YouTube is a good place to partner with influencers because, depending on your audience of course, that might be a good plan. Now they have some new things, like livestreaming and 360 videos. So that's more innovative tactics that you can use for YouTube.

5. Do you think the fact that Google owns YouTube has helped or hurt YouTube as a platform and a brand?

76 It's definitely helped from both an awareness and a capability standpoint. Just having the different apps and products that live underneath the YouTube site, and then it has also helped with partnerships and advertisements in terms of revenue.

7. Like most tech brands, YouTube is constantly evolving. What kind of impact has YouTube's evolution had on your industry, and what, from your perspective, does YouTube need to do to stay relevant and continue growing? They've definitely had a big impact, it's the go-to video channel and in terms of search as well. I think for the future, I think a lot of different social media sites and popular video platforms like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon, I think they're all working on differentiating and trying to figure out where they fit in and how they are different. I think YouTube, and YouTube is different from those sites, but just finding a spot where it can be successful moving forward. I know Netflix, for example, they're really focusing on creating original content. So I guess, what angle can they take to stand out? I think, I would look at the audience. Even if I would suggest YouTube in the future, maybe in the next campaign I might, I just would always look at the audience first - both the current audience first and who they want to reach and kind of forward looking for their goals. I think, I would assume for YouTube, the target or the main audience would be younger adults, teenagers maybe right now, especially with all of the influencer videos. So that's a big part, and I guess you would need to do more research on what they're looking for.

77 Appendix H: Survey Results

Q1 - Select your gender

# Answer % Count

1 Male 29.03% 27

2 Female 70.97% 66

3 Prefer not to answer 0.00% 0

Total 100% 93

78 Q2 - How old are you?

# Field Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation Variance Count

1 Age 18.00 25.00 20.71 1.28 1.65 93

Answer % Count

18 4.30% 4

19 7.53% 7

20 33.33% 31

21 34.41% 32

22 13.98% 13

23 3.23% 3

24 1.08% 1

25 2.15% 2

Total 100% 93

79 Q18 - Select your academic year

# Answer % Count

1 Freshman 6.45% 6

2 Sophomore 21.51% 20

3 Junior 33.33% 31

4 Senior 32.26% 30

5 Fifth year 5.38% 5

6 Graduate 1.08% 1

Total 100% 93

80 Q3 - Which social media channel do you use most?

# Answer % Count

1 Instagram 41.18% 35

2 Twitter 17.65% 15

3 Facebook 1.18% 1

4 Snapchat 31.76% 27

5 YouTube 8.24% 7

Total 100% 85

81 Q4 - How often do you use YouTube?

# Answer % Count

1 Never 0.00% 0

2 Once a year 0.00% 0

3 Once a month 7.06% 6

4 Once a week 11.76% 10

5 A few times per week 36.47% 31

6 Once a day 16.47% 14

7 A few times per day 28.24% 24

Total 100% 85

82 Q5 - What device do you most frequently access YouTube through?

# Answer % Count

1 Mobile 61.18% 52

2 Computer 36.47% 31

3 Tablet 0.00% 0

4 Smart TV (Apple TV, Roku, etc.) 2.35% 2

5 I don't access YouTube 0.00% 0

Total 100% 85

83 Q6 - Do you most frequently access YouTube alone or with others?

# Answer % Count

1 Alone 82.35% 70

2 With others 17.65% 15

Total 100% 85

84 Q8 - What are you usually going to YouTube for? (select all that apply)

# Answer % Count

1 Following along with favorite YouTubers 21.25% 34

2 Watching music videos 24.38% 39

3 Viewing a popular video that someone posted on social media 14.37% 23

4 Product reviews 9.38% 15

5 How-to videos 15.63% 25

6 Academic related content 8.75% 14

7 Other (please specify) 6.25% 10

Total 100% 160

Q8_7_TEXT - Other (please specify) Other (please specify) - Text

sports highlights

Concerts

Yoga videos

Sports videos

Comedic Narratives

Random stuff

Listen to soundtracks

Clips from talk shows

Pimple popping

Equestrian videos

86 Q10 - What percentage of the time do you go directly to YouTube.com for content, as opposed to following a YouTube link from a different site?

# Answer % Count

1 0% of the time 5.88% 5

2 25% of the time 17.65% 15

3 50 % of the time 17.65% 15

4 75% of the time 43.53% 37

5 100% of the time 15.29% 13

Total 100% 85

87 Q9 - Are you subscribed to any YouTubers? If so, estimate how many.

# Answer % Count

1 none 49.41% 42

2 1-5 18.82% 16

3 6-10 8.24% 7

4 11-15 7.06% 6

5 16-20 2.35% 2

6 20+ 14.12% 12

Total 100% 85

88 Q13 - Recall the first five YouTubers that come to mind. If you can't recall five, recall as many as you can. If you can't recall any, leave this blank.

Recall the first five YouTubers that come to mind. If you can't recall five, recall as many as you can. If you can't recall any, leave this blank. Aja Dang, Michelle Reed, Aspyn Ovard, Melanie Murphy, Monica Church

Jaclyn Hill, CoffeeBreakWithDani, Keren Swanson, Jordan Cheyenne, Heidi Somers

Rochelle Fox, Yoga with Adrienne

Shane Dawson, Gabi Hanna, Helen Anderson, Annika Victoria, Drew Monson, Garrett Watts

H3H3, JonTron, Pewedpie, Cody Ko, Vice

Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Drake

Alissa Violet

Gary Vaynerchuk

Megan Reinks, Zoella, Joe Santagato, Fleur DeForce, Este Lalonde

Ray William Johnson ninja

Desi Perkins, Katy, Jackyln Hill, Michelle Phan, Lauren Elizabeth

Nicole Concillio, Marym NYC, Jaclyn Hill, Lara Lee, Casey Holmes

Lilly Singh, Tati, Salomondrin, Mr. Kate, Jennxpenn

Jeffree star, Wendy riggs, binging with babish, nikki tutorials

James Charles, Nikkita Dragun, Jeffrey Star, Isabel Bedoya, Jacqulyn Hill

Jeffree Star

Jefree star, smosh, ricegum, faze banks, Jaclyn hill, Alissa violet

MannyMUA Jefree Star

Ninja, Comedy Central, LastWeekTonight, OrangeJuice, Ali-A manny mua, patrick starrrr, jeffree star, jacklyn hill, desi perkins, lustrelux,nikkietutorials, bretmanrock, Okbaby, kkandbabyj, Jenna marbles, Kian and Jc, Bobby Mares

Shane Dawson, Ro Pansino, Tati Westbrook, Safiya Nygaard, and Rhett & Link

Logan Paul, Jake Paul

Whitney Simmons, Shane Dawson, MissRemiAshton, Nikki Blacketter, GraceFitUK

Joe Santagato

89 NikkieTutorials, Manny Mua, Mikaela Long, thataylaa, JennaMarbles

Jenna Marbles, Your Movies Suck

Tyler Oakley, Shane Dawson, Jenna Marbles, Mark E Miller, DetroitBorg, Troye Sivan

Mannymua, David dobrik, Jackie aina, shane dawson, James charles

Jenna Mourey, Julian Solimita, Shane Dawson, Danelle Hallen, and Cody Ko

Tammy hembrow, Brittany dawn, Heidi sommers, Alexis ren, Annie tarisova

Jaqueline Hill, Geoff Green(John greens brother), charlieissocoollike, Tyler Oakley

Idubbbz, Jake Paul, H3H3, Filthy Frank

Logan Paul, liza,

Safiya Nygaard gretchenlovesbeauty

90 Q11 - How often do you use the skip button on YouTube ads?

# Answer % Count

1 Never 1.18% 1

2 Sometimes 1.18% 1

3 About half the time 3.53% 3

4 Most of the time 22.35% 19

5 Always 71.76% 61

Total 100% 85

91 Q14 - In your last few YouTube visits, what brands can you recall seeing? If you can't recall any, leave this blank.

In your last few YouTube visits, what brands can you recall seeing? If you can't recall any, leave this blank. Schick

Best fiends

Clinique, Love Simon

Army

dove

Root Car Insurance

Make up brands

Wix and Vimeo

Tarte, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Too Faced, Smashbox, Fenty Beauty, Morphe

PDFexpert

Makeup brands

shaving cream

wix

grammarly

Audible, Fashion Nova, Hello Fresh, Taste

Purple Mattress

Dollar Shave Club

Google devices (phones, speakers, etc.) or Amazon

none

92 Q15 - Which method did those brands use to reach you? Select any that apply.

# Answer % Count

1 I saw the brand in a pre-roll advertisement 34.11% 44

2 I saw the brand in a sidebar ad 13.18% 17

3 I saw the brand in a sponsored video 24.03% 31

4 I watched a video that the brand uploaded 5.43% 7

5 A YouTuber mentioned the brand in their video 11.63% 15

6 I don't recall seeing any brands on YouTube 11.63% 15

Total 100% 129

93 Q17 - Do you use any of the following YouTube applications? Select all that apply.

# Answer % Count

1 YouTube Red 2.38% 2

2 YouTube TV 2.38% 2

3 YouTube Music 3.57% 3

4 YouTube Gaming 0.00% 0

5 YouTube Kids 0.00% 0

6 I don't use any of these YouTube applications 91.67% 77

Total 100% 84

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