#Sponsored
Since the beginning of the digital world, our society has constantly been cluttered with advertisements. From billboards, newspapers, Tv shows, and magazines to Tweets, Instagram posts, and YouTube videos, there is always some sort of marketing taking place and coexisting with the content we interact with on a daily basis.
One of the topics in the Merchants of Cool video we recently watched in class that stood out to me the most was the idea of sponsorship. "Stealth marketing" was the term they had used in the video to describe sponsorship. This strategic product placement essentially fits products to have a connection and or relationship with a certain person, demographic, area, and event. The examples they used in the video often had to do with MTV and the companies, such as Sprite, who had found a way to intertwine their products with other well-received successful brands, artists, and entertainment companies. While their terms and examples are very outdated, the same concept applies even more so than before to today's media.
I think it is safe to say that Instagram and YouTube are two of the biggest social media platforms today. The most successful people on these platforms have become millionaires through these two apps, and they owe a lot of that success to the hundreds of brands that sponsor them. We have all seen the millions of YouTube videos where creators discuss how great a product is and how well it has worked for them, all just to end the video with a small ten second clip explaining that the video had been sponsored by the company mentioned the entire time. More recently, especially with more popular YouTubers and social media influencers in general, sponsorship has been made more obvious and unavoidable.
Take David Dobrik for example. He is a very successful YouTuber with over 12 million subscribers, and has also become famous with his various partnerships with the company SeatGeek. In previous years, open sponsorship without any attempts to hide the fact that one is working with a brand, was very rare. Almost no one would dare to publicly announce that their videos were sponsored back then, but more and more frequently, YouTubers have began to have no shame in doing so. For David Dobrik, the majority of his videos are sponsored by SeatGeek. SeatGeek not only sponsors his videos, but the company also helps him pull off insane surprises of new cars and large sums of money for his friends and family. In return, David spends anywhere from ten to thirty seconds in his videos explaining the purpose of the company, and telling the audience why they should use them. I think the way sponsorship is looked upon has drastically changed and evolved in the past few years since the creation of the Merchants of Cool,
While we consume countless amounts of advertising throughout our lifetime, it is interesting to see the techniques and trends evolve over time into a new era of marketing. Do you think sponsorship is better hidden or public? Let me know in the comments below!
I agree that Youtube has become one of the biggest platforms for advertisers because they can sponsor influencers that will reach out to millions of people. Youtube influencers are often taken to Coachella by a brand and all they have to do is promote the brand throughout the weekend. The Dote girls are a prime example of how this advertising works. The "Dote Girls" has become more used than their actual names which allows Dote to promote its app.
ReplyDeleteYes its true that the pubic figures from YouTube and Instagram are the ones who are giving us the majority of the advertainments straight to our face, and quit honestly we are just eating them up. I agree that the stealth marketing through these apps have been more obvious through out the year but this is the truth to how the brands are advertising now or I think this is how they need to now since these social media platforms are such a huge part of our generation. Honestly its kinda sad, I dint really want to watch like five ads during one YouTube video.
ReplyDeleteI think that the greatest success advertisers have had is by partnering with storytime/animators and with people who do crazy things their money. Like you said above, people like David Dobrik do things like buying cars for friends and family, or are like Mr Beast and $10,000 to streamers by taking a roadtrip to their house and knocking on their windows. By fiances absurd ideas companies are attracting more business to their influencers and to themselves. Storytime channels I don't find to be all that relatable most of the time, but seeing as they are some the most recognizable youtubers, this pitch seems to have worked, and thus companies go to them. Ultimately, this is all a game of numbers and statistics to determine who gets endorsed or not, but it's interesting to analyze the techniques people use to get more money.
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