You Tube gets serious ( $100 million) about making itself a TV destination
You Tube is really serious about making itself a major TV viewing destination. It is spending $100 million on original content. And the price it is seeking for its ads suggest it is serious about getting its cash back - and more.
The Mom's View show you see here ran with a Toyota Prius ad in front,
Early deals are in the $5 million to $10 million range, reports AdAge, but the aggressive asking price of $62 million for an exclusive on a package of "channels" in categories such as music or pop culture give you an idea of the BIG picture (no-one has bought into that yet).
Marketers signed on so far , include Unilever , which is sponsoring "Young Hollywood Network," Toyota , backing channels targeted at women, including "Cafe Mom," "Kin Community" and "Mom's View," and GM, sponsoring Red Bull's action sports channel .
Chrysler, AT&T and hardware supermarket Lowes are also on channels already launched.
By making the sponsorships of channels and packages of channels exclusive, YouTube "aims to ignite a
frenzy among marketers afraid of being left out," says AdAge.
Sample prices: Music and pop culture were $62 million apiece for one-year sponsorships, a package of sports channels was $40 million, a car package was $16 million and a mum's interest package $10 million.
YouTube also lets advertisers exclusively sponsor a single channel for anywhere from $2 million to $4 million on an annual basis.