Hey you! My name is Thomas “TomSka” Ridgewell and welcome back to YouTube Money, a 3-part
series where I’m trying to dispel rumours, answer questions, and generally explain the
process of money-making on YouTube! Today, I’m going to be talking about brand deals.
Sponsorships, endorsements, advertorials, all that fun stuff!
Now a “brand” is a pretty vague term. A brand could be a company, a product or even
a person. Hell, even I myself am a brand. So, for the sake of this video, a brand deal
is when someone has a thing and they want a YouTuber to tell their audience about the
thing. This is off to an eloquent start I know, but please bear with me.
So, to kick things off, how does a brand deal get started? Well, first you will have a company
with a thing that they want people to know about. That company will then take that thing
and a big ol' bucket of money to an advertising agency. That advertising agency will start
an advertising campaign and part of that will involve reaching out to YouTubers either directly
or through their management/networks and inviting them to be apart of the advertising campaign about the thing.
At this point the YouTuber is presented with a brief about the campaign; and what exactly
they’d need to do or say if they take the job. If the advertising agency doesn’t already
have a video idea in mind then the YouTuber or their management will pitch an idea. Once
everyone involved agrees on the specifics of the content, the video gets made.
Now, there is a plethora of different types of brand deals:
There are advertorials where a YouTuber is paid to create an advert or a video in their
own style, to promote a brand.
There’s product placement, where a YouTuber is paid to simply use or display a product in their video.
There’s endorsement where a YouTuber is paid to talk about how awesome a brand is.
There are giveaways where a YouTuber is paid to give their audience a product or host a
competition for them to win said product.
There are sponsorships where a YouTuber is funded by a brand but that brand has no control
over what actually gets made they just maybe get their name somewhere.
There are appearances where a YouTuber is paid to just show up on the brand’s own
YouTube channel and do anything the money people tell them to do.
There are also unpaid sponsorships where a YouTuber is given access to a brand or product
for free and are allowed to do and say what they want but that's unpaid and this is a
video series called “YouTube Money” so we are not gonna talk about that.
In short, there are an awful lot of ways a brand can work with a YouTuber which is why
this next part, the part you’re probably here to learn out about, is going to be so
incredibly vague. How much do YouTubers earn from brand deals?
Now, this probably won’t come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but the amount of money
a YouTuber is offered for a brand deal is usually dependent on the size of their channel
and the amount of “influence” they’re deemed to have over their audience. That’s
why they call us “influencers”. But it's not just that it's also the size of the brand,
the type of brand deal they want, or how aggressive or subtle the agency wants the promotion to
be. For these reasons, the amount of money a YouTuber can be offered for a single video
can genuinely range from £100 to £100,000.
It’s the wild-west out there and that’s why it’s a good idea for a YouTuber to have
a manager or a network or at very least a lawyer help negotiate the terms of the deal.
Their job is to get the YouTuber as much money as possible because after all they’re then
going to take a cut of it themselves. But they’re also there to ensure contracts are
signed so that no one gets screwed over by a terrifyingly powerful company at any point.
Because that can happen.
So, for the sake of full disclosure, for the first brand deal I ever did I was paid a whopping
£100. But the brand never told me I couldn’t enable AdSense on the video so it all kinda
worked out in the end. However, on the other side of the spectrum, I’ve also had brand
deals for which the budget was up to £25,000. But it's worth knowing that was the budget
not the paycheque. I spent all the money making the video because I’m an idiot.
The last thing I want to talk about is the laws surrounding brand deals mostly because
they’re still being figured out. Specifically, how clear a YouTuber has to be that what they're
doing or saying has been paid for. While I myself have never tried to mislead my audience
that didn’t stop me from getting swept into a policy-shift regarding this exact thing.
Like I said, the laws are still being ironed out but basically, at least here in the UK,
it is the law that a YouTuber must make it clear to their audience - right from the get-go
- that a brand deal is a brand deal. This can mean putting “ad” in the title, showing
it at the start of the video, or saying it at the start of the video.
Basically it’s no longer acceptable to wait until the end of the video to be like “oh
by the way you just watched an advert lol” or hide that fact it in the video description
somewhere. Speaking of the description, I’ll be including a bunch of interesting links
to this very topic in this description right here and also links to every brand deal I've
ever done because full disclosure. Why not let's do this.
Alright! I hope that cleared a few things up. I apologise that I couldn’t be more
specific about the money itself but, much like ad revenue, the cash behind brand deals
is extremely varied. There are no fixed rates or industry standards yet. It’s a bit of
a gold rush. Check back next time for the final video in this series which is going
to be all about merchandising. This is my merchandise. Thanks for watching and i'll
see you next time. TomSka Out.