Ways to Implement Effective Product Placement on YouTube

Ways To Implement Effective Product Placement On Youtube

Product placement is a marketing communication activity in which marketers place their products or services in media content without explicitly revealing their commercial purposes (Babin et al., 2021). Marketers have been increasingly using product placement for their marketing communication because they recognize the consumer fatigue caused by the excessive use of conventional advertising (García, 2021). Conventional advertising is intrusive as consumers are exposed to advertising messages they do not choose to view while enjoying media content. Product placement, however, allows consumers to continuously enjoy media content due to exposure or reference to products or services in a natural setting (García, 2021).

Product placement was initially used in movies in the 1930s; since then, the use of product placement has been expanded to diverse platforms from traditional media (e.g., television and radio) to new media such as video and online games, mobile applications, and social media (Eagle & Dahl, 2018; Kong & Hung, 2012). However, marketers targeting young consumer segments tend to avoid using traditional media because of the tendency of young consumers leaving traditional media for new media (Andrews & Shimp, 2018). On average, Americans aged 18-34 years watched television for only an hour and 12 minutes a day in the third quarter of 2020, which was roughly a 23.4% decrease from the previous year (“The State of Traditional TV: Updated with Q3 2020 Data,” 2021). They spent about 2.5 times more on web and smartphone applications. This implies that marketers targeting young cohorts should use new media for their marketing communication activities to reach them effectively. The use of product placement in traditional media such as movies, television, and radio has been extended to new media such as online and mobile platforms (Liu et al., 2015).

Social media platforms are online platforms where users can interact with others either in real time or asynchronously (Rhee et al., 2021). Social media users build a network by sharing content generated by themselves or others (e.g., other users, institutions, marketers). Although social media sites are relatively new, around 82% of the total U.S. population used social media in 2021, up from 53% a decade ago (The Infinite Dial 2021, 2021). Social media is especially popular among young Americans. According to a social media survey conducted in 2019, 89% of the Generation Z and 88% of the Generation Y population used social media daily (Cox, 2019).

Among various social media platforms such as social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), forums (e.g., Reddit and Digg), and media sharing networks (e.g., Instagram and YouTube), YouTube recorded the most significant growth since 2019 (Auxier & Anderson, 2021). One notable phenomenon is that YouTube shows high usage rates in all online user age cohorts. 72% of the total online users and 67% of baby boomer online users used YouTube in the third quarter of 2020 (Dixon, 2022). Baby boomers spent close to an equal amount of time on social media as younger age cohorts (Sheldon et al., 2021). In the case of YouTube, practitioners should focus on online users of all ages rather than focusing on the younger age cohort. According to the latest YouTube Culture and Trends Report, changes in lifestyles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to the growth of YouTube (Shalavi & Zeitoune, 2021). Due to the lockdown and restrictive COVID-19 guidelines, people lost opportunities to interact with others in person. This social disconnection dramatically damaged emotional and cognitive well-being (Provenzi & Tronick, 2020). Individuals tried to fill this void by watching videos with others in the virtual world (Shalavi & Zeitoune, 2021). Unlike traditional television where users passively receive content provided by television stations, YouTube users can actively choose the videos they want to watch (Duffett, 2020). They also interact with other users by uploading videos, sharing videos, commenting on videos or on others’ comments, and using the real-time chat function.