Advertisement ( Ad/ Ads) via social media, 'youtube' as the representative platform of social media

A Peep into the background

Advertisements are a form of projecting the importance, quality, differentiating aspects, category of population it caters to and many more reasons which the product brand wants to showcase. This is an article on the way advertisements appear in YouTube, a social media platform with video contents and taken as a representative platform. The conclusions from this article are not generalisable, but can be related with social media platforms with similar mode of operation. The upcoming interference autoplay options and autoaddition of advertisements observed in social media, triggered me to write this article. 

Prongs of observation

Observation method was used to collect information on the type of content and the video it is attached with. Each day YouTube was viewed for two hours, for ten days. Out of the forty advertisements which appeared over this time , fifteen were repetitions and rest of the twenty five advertisements were new. Here 'new' means appeared fresh, without repetition and not related to the release or video making year. Twenty five advertisements were descriptively analysed and related with the time of advertisement, content, video it is attached with, repetitions, quality of the content and also their relation with search history.

In addition, two YouTube channels were followed, one with promotion activities from the channel for a short time and one which never had channel promotion activities from the side of the channel.

"Scrutinized "

In general, the suggestions on advertisements appear according to the feeds, which itself is according to the search history. This has similarity in products, which may or maynot be of different brands and also content.Timing varies from 10 sec to 1 minute. Short timed advertisements appear with short videos whereas longer advertisements appear as suggestions. Standalone advertisements are very less and usually appear as channel video shorts.

The content which frequently appeared comprises of nutrition related products, personal development, skill development, spirituality, astrology, new technological applications ( like AI, chat GPT), health care, cosmetology.

Most of the advertisements are comprehensive, conscise, well presented and match the intention of the advertisement and grasp the attention of the viewer, making it a frequently viewed advertisement. 

Some of the ways by which advertisements get selected, are by 

a) advertisement promotion activities from the youtube channel creator or owner

b) advertisement promotion activities by the youtube platform management and self generated by Artificial intelligence. 

In all these ways, there is no option for deciding the advertisement, a channel can promote, except for promotion activities from this social media management itself.

Out of these ways, paid promotions, which is active channel promotion from the channel owner or creator, are very limited in scope as the promotional activities may not be in proportion to the actual spending. The self generated advertisements are the ones, which needs monitoring and control as the content maybe varied and not at all in alignment with the video content it is attached with. They are mainly decided by the search history of videos and the feed videos which appear accordingly. 

YouTube and AI

This social media platform has community guidelines and AI policies in place. The creators are supposed to disclose AI content in their video, moreover has the option to involve AI in their channel for content mixing or promotion. But there is a lack of clarity and difficulty to differentiate between the original content, AI mixed content and AI generated content. Involvement of AI with the original, clear, non misleading, non erroneous contents, if restricted can bring out better videos with clarity and originality. This type of AI involvement is an apprehension in the minds of all original creators without AI involvement.

On the other hand, there is a search for AI involved videos too to compare it with the original contents and also to know how evolved AI is in terms of clarity, creativity and innovation. Most of the articles on AI, reports that AI involvement is less creative than the human involved videos.

The creators disclosing AI involved content, confirming to YouTube community guidelines, are also confirming to allow repetitive subtle changes in the video. The option to allow mixing video content, is also a subtle way to allow the involvement of AI in the video. 

Navigating the creator mind

The autoinsertion of advertisements not matching the actual video content may cause confusion and mislead the viewers about the channel video.

The channel video watch time may reduce when advertisements are long and before the option for skipping the video ( "skip video" ) or "exit" appears. This also happens when advertisements appear in the middle of the channel video. 

The major concern, is the addition of a content ( even if it is not part of the actual video from the channel), which is not controlled or decided by the channel creators or owners or YouTube management system. 

Advertisements purely decided by Artificial intelligence mechanism, should be of a concern and should be scrutinised by the social media platform management for content change or deletion. There should be a manual option to remove the advertisements not suiting the actual video, erroneous and also socially unaccepted contents.

Even if, these policies are in place, the creators still do not have any role in the advertisements attached to their videos and if scrutinized, creators can show only a bare hand to the questions. This is the same situation for those videos where " allow mixing " option is on for the video. 

Ways to reduce creator/channel owner apprehension 

a) Before uploading the video, give the options about the video and the expectations the channel has, by providing the right options for the questions posed by the YouTube. 

b) Follow the YouTube community guidelines as far as possible 

c) It better to give the option " Do not Allow mixing" when asked about it while uploading. 

d) Give the declarations about the channel content correctly

e) Give credits, acknowledment to any content which has similarity with the channel content

f) Ask for permission for any content borrowed and used in the video, if copyrights are applicable for the original content. It maynot be needed for open, free source contents.