Over the past few months, we have seen Google pushing aggressively to take a portion of advertiser TV budget. Only last month, ARM Board Director, Dylan Moss, wrote an article on how YouTube claim they drive a higher ROI than TV, increasing your spend by six times can further optimise the media mix… A bold claim indeed!
Recently, YouTube have again stated that they ‘can reach more younger audiences on mobile than ITV.’ Additionally, YouTube has conducted research via YouGov to once again showcase why media buyers should send money their way:
- Half of all respondents aged between 16 and 34 have watched YouTube on a TV
- 41% of millennials (16-24) choose YouTube to be their preferred video source vs. 27% for TV
- 59% of 16-34 year-olds agree they are more likely to find content they are passionate about on YouTube than on TV
All Response Media Viewpoint
It comes as no surprise that a large number of 16-34 year-olds prefer YouTube. However, it is important that we view these stats and opinions in context. We agree that YouTube is an important platform in the overall media mix, but it fulfils a different role to TV and consequentially each platform should be combined to work together and not in competition to each other.
Claiming YouTube on mobile reaches more young people than ITV is not a like-for-like comparison. What has not been taken into account is the fact this younger audience spends more time with TV as a whole rather than on a specific station, such as ITV1. We also need to consider the impact of the platform itself; the nature in which TV is consumed is likely to impact the consumer more than a mobile video advert would.
