Product placement on YouTube: An explorative study on YouTube creators’ experiences with advertisers

Abstract

During its process of diffusion, YouTube has become increasingly attractive for advertisers, not only in terms of classical commercials (like pre-roll ads) but also in terms of product placement opportunities. This article aims to explore the processes between YouTube creators and advertisers concerning product placement enquiries. For this purpose, YouTube creators from Germany ( n = 57) answered an online survey about their experiences with advertisers. The creators covered a wide range of YouTube channel genres (beauty, fashion, comedy, gaming, cooking) and differed in number of subscribers. Some creators who took part in the survey had less than 20,000 subscribers, others had between 20,000 and 500,000 subscribers and still others had more than 500,000 subscribers. How often do YouTube creators use product placement? Is paid-for placement an important source of finance for them? How professional are the relations and processes between YouTube creators and advertisers? Before presenting and discussing the results of the empirical survey of the current use of product placement, a brief history of how YouTube has become a marketing space for advertisers is provided.