Google's YouTube have just announced that they've started to E Commerce enable YouTube video. It's a breakthrough in terms of video and sales as well as giving YouTube advertisers, direct response for their investment.
It is probably the biggest breakthrough since advertising started. You watch a commercial online and you can buy directly from it. We've waited a long time for this. A billion customers a month are on YouTube.
In partnership with Google Search, what happens is that you watch a video which shows some product and when you click on an aspect of it, you can buy the product online instantly. Or you can search retailers, product functionality etc.
And it's exclusively YouTube so the same video won't click thru elsewhere.... hence if you want advertising that sells....advertise on YouTube. Magnificent breakthrough.
The first product is Unilever's Tresemme in the hair/beauty category as a test and it'll be interesting to see the results. The audience they have, the technology they now have and it will just be up to doing good video that brings eyeballs in to watch. Streamabout are in that space thankfully.
So YouTube is now a shop. Presumably they'll take a margin on all online sales and possibly, start charging for the space to show your video.
It's a dream really and a terrific Advertising platform that will compete seriously with traditional media. You never really knew if your Advertising worked on delivering sales, as such. Now, you do.
