Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

With all the chat about Viacom asking YouTube to take down its copyrighted content, you have to ask yourself if Viacom is cutting off its nose to spite its face by snubbing the potential audience for it’s programming that can be reached via YouTube? That depends on how you regard the business model of content providers such as Viacom. If you just want to get “stuff” out there, then let the “stuff” you’ve paid millions to produce get used on every “social networking” site in the universe. If on the other hand you want people to watch a clip on your own network's website, where you can control the surrounding advertising, messaging, promotions and experience, then you can also incentivise them to register for newsletters, blogs, sweepstakes or SMS alerts. With YouTube, even the most involved promotions won't reap anywhere near the same return per visitor. This makes YouTube merely another marketing channel, and content providers have to determine the ROI on this channel when weighing it against the potential cannibalization and bastardization of their “stuff.”

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