Good morning, Marketer, and RU YouTube’s audience is engaged with Ukraine news
Zorka.Agency is a global digital marketing agency headquartered in Belarus, but also with employees in Ukraine and Russia. When they reached out to share data on changing behavior of the Russian YouTube audience I looked with interest. Although YouTube has blocked some Russian channels, YouTube itself — at least, this week — is still available and popular in Russia.
Persistently high interest in the Beijing Olympics vanishes as interest in Ukraine peaks. Around the same time, interest in independent Russian TV channel TV Rain soars. (See below for visualization.)
Among Zorka’s observations: “At the moment, there is a sharp increase in the coverage of news channels, or bloggers publishing videos on the topic Ukraine – Russia. The largest drop in views and dynamics of publications is in the Entertainment sector with a target audience of 25+. Decrease in advertising volumes due to the suspension of campaigns may become one of the main trends for the coming months…Brands began to pay increased attention to brand safety issues, advertisers avoid placement in conflict content.”
These trends may not seem surprising, but it’s heartening to see evidence that an audience is engaged on one of the few major social media platforms still accessible to them.
Kim Davis
Editorial Director
