YouTube: Platform With Strong Brand Appeal

This year has brought radical changes in consumer behavior. This has attracted brands to platforms like YouTube to promote their products or services and even reach new audiences. Latin America, in particular, is a region where this platform has increased its scope and adoption. 

In August 2020, according to Comscore, YouTube reached more than 55 million people of 18 years of age and older in Mexico. In Argentina, it reached 94 percent of internet users over the age of 18. In that same period, the platform reached more than 20 million people in the same age range in Colombia. This growth has been driven by one device in particular: TV. Throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America, the device with the greatest growth in viewing time is the television. Moreover, in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, TV is the device with the highest growth in terms of YouTube access as of August 2020, the company said during its virtual event Brandcast 2020.

"When we observed this trend, it made a lot of sense to us because of the nature of consumption. We can see people probably in their TV room with other family members going to Youtube to watch content, maybe transmitted from their mobile phones to a bigger screen," said Pablo Castellanos, Marketing and Market Research Manager at YouTube Mexico, Colombia and Central America during the event. 

According to a study conducted by Talkshoppe, since the beginning of the outbreak, 86 percent of video users in Spanish-speaking America stated that their consumption of YouTube content has increased. In Mexico, more than 45 percent of those surveyed said they would use the platform more than before the pandemic. “Clearly, within the decisions and priorities that we have in a moment as complex as the one we are living, many of our habits are changing and Youtube, in particular, has found its place and users are finding value within the platform," Castellanos pointed out. 

But YouTube's growth goes beyond just minutes spent on the platform. According to company data, seven out of 10 users say the content they watch is personally relevant to them. "It is not just content that appeals to them but something that relates to their mindset. This speaks to the diversity of content that can be found on the platform. There is something for everyone and it is up to each person to decide at what time they see it and on which device," explained Castellanos. 

An Attractive Resource for Brands

This clearly represents an opportunity for brands in all industries. "YouTube remains among the Top 3 social networks with the greatest penetration in the Mexican market and its streaming platform is making significant progress among digital TV lovers. Additionally, 85 percent of TV viewers look for some particular piece of information on social networks and that is where YouTube becomes a very effective second screen that brands and advertisers should take advantage of," Carlos Herrero, CEO of Extrategia Comunicación y Medios, told Mexico Business News. 

In Latin America, 37 percent of YouTube users say branded content makes them more likely to buy that brand. In Mexico, where the platform has more than 630 channels with more than one million subscribers, 46 percent of respondents feel the same way. Likewise, in the country, seven out of 10 YouTube users declared to have bought something after having seen branded/sponsored content.

When searching for a brand, product or service-specific information, video users in Mexico are 1.7 times more likely to use YouTube than other online and offline video platforms. An analysis by Nielsen on MMMs found that on average, the effectiveness of YouTube was 2.5 times greater than the effectiveness of TV.

Herrero notes that by using YouTube as a consumer communication channel, brands can gain benefits such as micro-segmentation by demographics, interests, topics, context and remarketing, increased potential reach and multi-formatting of videos. They also have full control of budgets, clear and effective analytics, fair payment due to features like  TrueView and continuous improvement of their market knowledge. 

In 2Q20, OTT platforms registered a total of 10.2 million users in Mexico, an increase of 1.3 million clients compared to last year’s figures, which means an increase of 14.1 percent. In Mexico, according to The Competitive Intelligence Unit, the appeal of serving this market lies not only on the fact that the health crisis has boosted these platforms, but also that the universe of internet users who consume streaming content represented 44.3 million people at the end of 2019, which is 14.8 percent more than the previous year. These figures reflect that 52.1 percent of internet users make up the audience of these platforms.

This may sound quite appealing to brands. However, not everything is rosy. The video consumer and the digital platform user in general, notes Herrero, has become increasingly difficult to convince. “Their level of attention is lower every day and the advertiser's window of opportunity is narrower. One of the great disadvantages of the video platform is that people watch videos but do not necessarily keep track of all the messages they see,” he says. 

A further challenge is the audience's awareness of video advertising. "We are so overloaded with video. All social media uses this resource as their greatest source of attraction and the audience is overwhelmed. On YouTube alone, more than a billion hours of video are consumed each day and the average internet user goes through two or three social networks in a single session,” Herrero explains. 

In this race where brands seek to catch the eye of customers in shorter times and with a wide variety of options, the challenge is no less. For Carlos Herrero, this will force everyone, whether broadcasters, creators or advertisers, to go back to the core pillars of communication: clarity, assertiveness and empathy.