
Ask HN: So how bout those Donald trump YouTube ads? - jacobwilliamroy
Why does alphabet choose to run them, plastered over the front page of youtube?
======
markus_zhang
I think it's just about money. You pay and get what you pay for.

------
anon4lol
Maybe they want to be on the winning side this time (just joking). My guess is
that the trump campaign is spending on ads on YouTube, while the Biden
campaign isn't. There seems to be a lot of mashups and videos comparing
statements of Biden now and years ago. I get the impression the general tone
of most of the videos on YouTube are negative for Biden, and probably not the
best place to spend ad money. Especially considering that YouTube will start
recommending political videos trying to get click rage engagement going on.

I made the mistake during the last election clicking on a promoted video about
Hillary and my god I had to spend weeks clicking "don't recommend this
channel" in my feed. YouTube will shove political video recommendation down
your throat. I don't like political commentary regardless of what side of the
ideological spectrum it comes from.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
They were on the winning side last time too. Got investigated by Congress and
testified on C-SPAN and everything.

------
non-entity
I'm actually very curious about this too. I dont often view political content
on YouTube or really other sites (although I do discuss it a good bit on
various sites and chat applications), yet whenever I open the YouTube app I my
phone, there's a Trump ad pinned to the top or one before a video. All other
ads are closer related to my actual search history.

For comparison other streaming apps I use tend to show me a mix of Trump/Biden
ads, but YouTube seems to show exclusively Trump ones.

~~~
jollofricepeas
It’s a great strategy.

My assumption is that Trumps team is attempting to leverage the laxness of
YouTube’s platform because of the negative attention and increased scrutiny
that Facebook has been under.

They are outspending on a platform that will not correct or proof their
messaging.

Trump’s digital team is extremely good at optimizing for conversions in a way
that Obama’s team was as well.

Trump’s team uses plain English with simple call-to-actions focused on emotion
such as FEAR. Dems language is much more convoluted and some would say
elitist.

It remains to be seen whether stoking FEAR is as powerful a tool as HOPE is
which to a certain degree is the commonality between their past campaigns:

* Obama was hope for a better future

* Trump’s first campaign was hope for a return to “values” of the past

