SUPER BOWL’S AUDIENCE PUNY VERSUS GANGNAM’S

While this year’s Super Bowl attracted 168 million viewers and set a record for the most-watched telecast in U.S. history, that figure pales in comparison with the 429 million views that PSY’s “Gangnam Style” video has counted, most within the last 6-7 weeks, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield noted today (Thursday). The key takeaway is that in an increasingly connected world (thanks to social media) with the ability to watch high quality video anywhere/anytime (thanks to smartphones with HD quality screens and improving wireless bandwidth), the power of YouTube is growing rapidly,” Greenfield wrote. Moreover, he notes, the principal viewers of the video are teenage girls, teenage boys, and males 18-24. “Those are three of the most challenging demos for advertisers to reach,” he observes. Greenfield comments that advertisers to pooh-pooh such videos because they are mostly viewed on mobile devices are making a mistake. “If you are willing to watch a video ad on an HD quality screen, a few inches from your face and choose not to skip it (TrueView feature), that should be far more valuable to an advertiser than a TV ad where you are not even paying attention to the screen,” he wrote.