YouTube’s Only Five Years Old?

In advertising these days, the holy grail is “viral video” — a spot that gets hundreds of thousands of impressions online, even if it only runs a few times on traditional broadcast television. Ad agencies spend tons of time and money trying to make the next “viral” spot, because internet buzz proves more cost-effective — and often just plain effective — than spending millions placing an ad on television.

So it’s hard to believe that, just five years ago, the term “viral video” didn’t exist — because there was nowhere for the virus to incubate. But on Valentines Day 2005, the domain name www.youtube.com was registered… the first little baby step in a project that would quite literally change the world.

More than 1 billion videos per day are now viewed on YouTube, and a whole host of imitators and innovators have popped up since. Want TV on your schedule? Go to Hulu. Want higher-quality, artier fare? Try Vimeo. Want comedy? Head over to Funny Or Die. But the queen bee is still YouTube, the place where news, advertising, soapbox and spam collide. Some of the most popular advertisements of recent years (Bud Light’s “Swear Jar,” for instance, or eTrade’s “Trading Baby”) only ran a few times on television, but garnered millions of intentional views on YouTube.

But what does it mean for you? It means, at a minimum, that there’s a low-cost, low-maintenance way to reach potential customers. But what is also means is that “traditional advertising” — print, radio and television — is now just a part of the equation. The other part — a portion that’s growing larger each and every day — is social media. Businesses and brands can no longer rely on a huge ad buy to make an impact, because if it doesn’t connect with consumers in a meaningful way, it will make LESS of an impression than it ever has. The market is saturated: More channels, more websites, and more ad impressions than ever before… it spurs us to tune out the noise, and pay attention only to those things that really connects to us.

It’s a challenge, to be sure, but it’s also an opportunity: To stand out from the crowd by being… well, interesting, for sure — but more importantly, being open, honest and accountable to your customers and clients. It’s a rebirth of human connection via technology, and it’s arguably all thanks to YouTube.