YouTube

YouTube today is one of the most visited websites all over the world. According to alexa.com YouTube is ranked number 3 in the world according to the three-month traffic rankings, and up to 20% of the site’s visitors come from the US. The enormous popularity of YouTube among visitors makes it one of the most attractive channels for advertisement and promotion of retailing. This essay gives an analysis on how some sellers, including Procter and Gamble, Nestle, Volkswagen, Pizza Hut, use YouTube as an effective media source in their business strategy.

For example, Procter&Gamble have their own YouTube channel, where they inform the society about their projects, news, advertisement releases and sponsorship programs receiving the customers’ feedback. In this context, YouTube is very comprehensive tool, as it allows two-way communication.  The visitors have a chance to leave their comments about the company’s activities and take part in many friendly programs, like “What does the red, blue and white mean to you” or “Thank You Mom”. Thus, Proctor&Gamble uses YouTube to show their achievements, receive customers’ opinions and, thus, implement one of their core principles of social responsibility.

Close to P&G contest was chosen by Nestle when they set their YouTube channel “Nestlé - Creating Shared Value”. The page suggests that long-term success of the business could be achieved not only through high market value for shareholders, but also through social sustainability. Thus, with a help of YouTube, Nestle shares videos on their priorities, like the value of pure water, rural development, nutrition and health of kids. This channel helps a company to promote the part of their business strategy concerning social responsibility and social problems awareness. 

Verizon Wireless are also presented in YouTube with own on-line channel, where they provide TV-advertisements, demos and tutorials for their devices like smartphones, droids, tablets, connected devices etc, sports and entertainment ads, and other promoting videos. Unlike the P&G and Nestle, Verizon does not promote the social content but gives and emphasize on their extended 4G LTE coverage and technological improvements.  In addition, Verizon promote their products in YouTube as the advances to use internet and watch YouTube in any place – at the office, bathroom, poolside, porch or bed. In addition, they post for a discussion their sales, bet-buy prices and news in 4G coverage extensions. Thus, the YouTube watchers of their channel have a unique opportunity keep in touch with company’s latest news and technological advancements.

Another company that has YouTube channel is Pizza Hut.  With this channel, the customers may see their latest TV-advertisenet, videos from Facebook and other fun content regarding the company. Their strategy to post behind-the-scenes footage on YouTube allows the company deserving the customer’s friendly attitude and makes them as “mates” of ordinary people. Another YouTube video of Pizza Hut promotes the smartphone application for pizza ordering. The video shows exclusive steps on product ordering and highlights the unique product modeling possibilities with the use of the new application.

The leading car manufacturers, like Volkswagen, also use YouTube. For the company, YouTube is a completely new media for the advertisement of their cars, as comparing to traditional TV ad YouTube enables company to get the viewers response. Some comments are positive, some are harsh, and nonetheless YouTube is a great tool of measuring the societal attitudes and changes in consumer behavior.  In addition, YouTube allows posting many videos that are not that appropriate for TV commercials (like the The Dog Strikes Back: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial), as they are too long, still they create a positive profile of the company and are worth seeing. 

To conclude, it is important to reaffirm that all the mentioned above companies use YouTube as a part of their marketing strategy since YouTube is very popular website among US and international internet users. In addition, YouTube is not the traditional one-way promotion as it allows measuring consumers’ attitudes towards old and new products, is a source for additional ideas from the visitors’ reviews and for critics as a motivation to improve.