Published: July 4, 2024

YouTube’s Ads Are So Effective Your 2-Year-Old Remembers Them

By Movieguide® Contributor

A new study revealed that ads delivered on YouTube provide more than double the recall among consumers than on any other platform.

The study found that YouTube provides 2.3 times better ad recall compared to broadcast and cable and 2.6 times greater ad recall than video-on-demand (VOD), per Indiewire. The staying power of ads was particularly strong among children ages 2-12 with over half of them (53%) saying they recall ads they see on YouTube more than anywhere else.

The staying power of YouTube’s ads boils down to a couple of key factors. The factor with the most impact is that Google’s ad targeting is some of the best currently available, meaning users are almost always being sold a product that is relevant to them.

Another key factor is the fact that YouTube’s ads are nearly always skippable within 5 to 15 seconds, meaning users don’t often walk away while ads are rolling. Cable and VOD ads, meanwhile, often come in chunks of multiple minutes, which lead to consumers checking out, or walking away from their TV/device while the ads roll.

Furthermore, ads that reach a younger audience tend to find more engagement because jingles and other advertisement strategies are relatively novel to the group, causing them to get sucked into uninspired ads that might seem cliché to mature audiences.

The impact of YouTube’s ads is bad news for streaming platforms that are struggling to land favorable deals with advertisers. With every streaming site adding an ad-supported tier in the last year, the market for ads has ballooned, creating an extremely competitive market for high-quality ads.

Beyond offering the best recall for advertisers, YouTube has also reigned as the most popular streaming service since the beginning of 2023, on average capturing between nine and 10% of all TV usage for any given month during that time. With market-leading usage as well, there is no reason advertisers wouldn’t choose to work with YouTube over any other platform. This has caused many major studios to have to begin to consider YouTube when creating their business strategies.

Movieguide® previously reported:

YouTube continues to dominate streaming, a title it’s held for over a year and a half, causing other players in the industry to view it as both a friend and a foe.

Nielsen’s May 2024 TV usage report revealed that YouTube accounted for 9.7% of all TV usage that month, handily beating out Netflix’s second place 7.6% of TV usage, which was more than double that of any other platform. This marked nearly a year and a half of holding the crown just above Netflix’s head.

While YouTube isn’t typically thought of as a streaming service, its dominance in the TV space puts it at odds with traditional media, causing streaming platforms to consider it when creating their long-term strategies.

Disney, for example, has turned to YouTube’s massive audience to promote its content, particularly children’s content, posting clips from upcoming shows to generate hype. While it has yet to do so, it has also considered posting full episodes of shows from Hulu and Disney+ onto YouTube to entice viewers to subscribe to its platforms.