The largest video sharing website YouTube has over a billion subscribers has posed a ban on content creators from directly partnering with advertisers and forced its users to reveal commercial partnerships prior to uploading a video.
Lately, the Google owned website revised its advertising policy to obstruct graphical title cards or video overlays of product branding or sponsor logos until YouTube is paid for the advertisement. As per an anonymous content creator, YouTube is making it obligatory for content creators to include the Google ad sales teams in every deal and acquire the media through them.
For instance, the online retailer Snapdeal has sponsored several video contents by stand-up comedy group All India Bakchod (AIB) via an independent deal that is not routed via Google. But, a senior ad executive has claimed that this is highly impossible.
However, YouTube lets content creators to produce revenues from sponsorships such as product placements, text banner ads that are embedded in the content and content created for a brand.
Regarding this, a Google spokesperson said that for such content, the creators can generate 100 percent revenues and that Google will not modify anything. He added that for a 30-second to one minute ad or graphic banner ads that are embedded in their content, they will require a share percentage of the revenue earned with YouTube.”
AIB’s partnership with the search engine Askme for content titled ‘Ask AIB any questions’ will not be impacted by the change in YouTube’s policy. But the deal between the comedy group The Viral Fever (TVF) and the property portal Commonfloor.com for the fiction show ‘Permanent Roommates’ on YouTube will involve the protagonist searching for a property through Commonfloor.com recounting features of the site.
Regarding this, Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO at WAT Consult part of the Dentsu Aegis Network said that it is apparent that the video sharing website spotted an advertising revenue leak and has taken a business-oriented call. He added that it is expected to see an initial resistance from advertisers in the beginning.
