It appears some of the planet’s biggest advertisers are prepared to forgive and forget after the recent boycott of Google’s YouTube following-on from revelations pre-roll ads were being shown next to, and supporting, hate and racist content.
However, new data from US ad sales software firm MediaRadar has shown advertisers appear to be flooding back to the platform.
MediaRadar research tracked the top 24 Google preferred channels in the US and found, in April, that five per cent of advertisers within those channels dropped off the platform between the months of March and April.
By May, it had increased an additional 50 per cent and by June some 508 brands advertised within Google Preferred, which was a reported 134 per cent increase from January just before the scandal broke.
The study found that Google Preferred channels running ads and their frequency had increased since April. The average number of channels had increased some nine per cent per month, while the number of days advertisers run campaigns was up 10 per cent per month.
Commenting on the findings, MediaRadar’s CEO Todd Krizelman said: “There was a real contraction and reaction [among] brand-name advertisers, but our feeling was that YouTube responded very foreseeably to remedy the situation.
“Even in the NewFronts, where I thought YouTube said the right things, they even had some of those same advertisers who said that they were going to pull out and did briefly … back on the stage again.”
