Advertising

Something today struck me (Arthur) as so incredibly hilarious today that I just cannot wait to share it with our loyal readers: today on Pandora, an advertisement for a YouTube channel called "Epic Rap Battles of History" was played during a break in the music.

Epic Rap Battles of History might well posit such an absurd picture in our reader's mind that its mere existence would justify this post.  I want to go in another direction and reflect on the fact that an advertisement for a YouTube channel exists at all.

First off, advertisements are great.  So many of the websites I enjoy, including YouTube, Pandora, and to a certain extent, Blogspot, offer their services at no charge because companies who do charge for their services will pay the website money to advertise on their site.  This creates incentive for these websites to get as many people to use their service as possible so these companies will pay them more money, meaning these websites are constantly working to maximize my user experience so they might retain my patronage.  During this entire chain of events, the only cost I am accruing is the cost of my internet access, and theoretically, with libraries and other public institutions, access to all of the Tim Duncan highlights I could ever want could be subsidized completely by Joe Taxpayer (if that wounds the sensibilities of any of our readers, rest assured that Alex and I are paying into the pot as well).

Bear in mind that the entire scenario I just described is driven by some company's desire to hold my attention for 15 seconds so they can pitch me their product.  They do this in the knowledge that only a very small fraction of the people they reach using this method will be persuaded to use their product because of the advertisement; indeed, even with targeted ads, so many of the advertisements I am shown are of no relevance to me.  Furthermore, my dear Alex does the lion's share of household purchasing for our abode; trying to sell me a Swiffer mop is completely pointless.

If I were to go by just my own intuition, I would say the only things worth advertising this way would be movies and insurance companies.  Movies make sense because, unlike household products, people do not form a habit of going to or buying the same movie.  I imagine most people don't switch insurance that often, but over years and years of paying into a policy, a person could easily pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to an insurance company.  With a hundred thousand dollar payback, insurance companies can afford to strike out the vast majority of the time and still profit by their ads.

My intuition must be awful.  Think of the implication that the administrators of a YouTube channel, which again, is putting out videos at no cost to you, decided that it was profitable for them to take out an ad on another website that generates profits by their ad space.  Artistic pride aside, they probably don't really care how much of their actual product you view, so long as you see the ad beforehand.  There's now two degrees of separation between the viewer and someone who wants to sell them something, and I find it astounding that that is a profitable way to do business.

If you will allow some editorializing, this means that views on a website quite literally function as currency.  Just as you would with money, I would encourage you, dear reader, to be quite frugal with your new found wealth, not just because you should value your time, but because by viewing certain sites you are quite literally supporting them financially.  Support that which is good, so that in our world it may be said, Omnia Vincit Amore.