As the new year of 2024 came, a noteworthy record has been set. No, we're not referring to Gangnam Style breaching 5 billion views (which occurred in late December 2023). Instead, we're highlighting the achievement of the first music video to garner over 100 million ad-promoted views, commonly known as ad-views (as of March 2024, it reached 130M adviews, and we are not counting the promotional Banana ChaCha which we tracked over 125M)

At a cost that could approach US$50,000, achieving 100 million ad-views is far from inexpensive. However, the primary question we should be posing is: is it worth it?

Upon the release of this week's YouTube Charts (This article was written on January 2024), we got the final confirmation. YG's "Babymonster Batter Up" MV not only achieved 100 million ad-views, but it also surpassed this milestone, reaching nearly 110 million. This accomplishment stands almost as twice the ad-views of the previous record-holders, a "tie" held by ITZY's "Cheshire" and (G)I-dle's "Queencard", each with nearly 65 million ad-views.

Editor note: if you know what and how ad-views work, skip down to the news and commentary about Batter Up clicking here.

But how do we come by this information, and why do companies (and fans) invest so heavily in ad-promotion? Is it solely for promotional purposes, or is there something more at play?

In the past, YouTube didn't provide much beyond conventional text or image placement for advertisements. Consequently, there was a prevailing belief that all views on a video were "organic" views, indicating that a "real" person had watched the video. While this is partially true and aligns with YouTube's original intention, it doesn't capture the whole truth.

Malicious actors soon recognized that they could manipulate the system by employing dozens, or even thousands, of devices—often inexpensive smartphones—to play the video and repeatedly refresh the page, artificially inflating the view count for a fee. Soon, the internet became saturated with various third-party entities offering to deliver "thousands" and eventually "millions" of views in exchange for payment. The motivations to inflate one's views are diverse and multifaceted, but it seems the market for these so called "bot-farms" were profitable.

Initially, YouTube utilized viewership as a crucial metric in their recommendation algorithm. Consequently, having more views meant that your video would be promoted even further, regardless of whether those initial views were genuinely from people. Additionally, it wasn't solely YouTube's algorithm that favored substantial numbers—human psychology exhibited a similar bias. The prevailing belief was that if a video had amassed a significant number of views, it must be inherently good. Therefore, more views provided a form of validation and exposition for the content.

As an increasing number of channels resorted to third-party "bot-farm" services to artificially inflate their views, YouTube found it necessary to proactively combat these non-organic practices. YouTube took on the responsibility of identifying such views and implemented measures to either remove them or, in many cases, ban the source IPs associated with these bots.

Even today, there are instances where the number of public views experiences a reduction over a specific period, often by the millions. This reduction occurs when YouTube detects and takes action against large bot-nets of non-organic "viewers," retroactively eliminating their views from the counters. This phenomenon is a significant reason why view counters tend to slow down or halt after reaching around 400 views, entering an "audit" phase. During this phase, YouTube scrutinizes whether the views are being artificially inflated by third-party systems. Notably, YouTube employs undisclosed algorithms to discern view authenticity, and repeat views from the same IP or logged accounts are accorded less weight. The intricacies of how YouTube handles situations such as repeated views and local networks sharing the same IP remain undisclosed by the platform.

However, combating non-organic "viewers" proved to be a costly and challenging endeavor for YouTube. The more stringent their measures against these practices, the more intricate and sophisticated the bots became. Partly in response to this escalating situation, as well for obvious profit, YouTube introduced in 2010 a "solution": True-View

In an effort to diversify their monetization methods, YouTube extended the reach of True-View by allowing videos to serve as advertisements on other videos - any video on the platform. Through this system, any user can access Google Ads, allocate funds, and promote any video of their choice. This approach not only enables companies to promote their new products, music videos, or vlogs but also empowers fans and other interested parties to invest in the promotion of specific videos.

However, the benefits are not only exposure to millions of people, but you also earn an adview for each time the video is viewed. Well, an adview for your dashboard, because for the public user, the normal person who cannot access the limits of your account, all views are born the same, and the public counter will display organic views and ad views all the same, one single sum.

YouTube not only charges less than their "unlawful competition" (approximately $0.01 for every 3-4 views, more if you want them fast), but it also facilitates the promotion of your video, essentially compelling others to view it as an ad. Additionally, creators have the discretion to decide whether viewers can skip these ads or not (notably, unskippable ads come at a higher cost). It's a win-win scenario for both YouTube and content creators.

Well, this is were things get complicated.

In this case, placing a legitimate advertisement on YouTube becomes a strategic move. If you adhere to the standard of keeping ads brief, ranging from 5 to 15 seconds, you're likely to experience fewer skips. This approach may even result in higher engagement, as users might be less inclined to reach for the mouse or TV control to skip a short ad, reasoning that "it's only 15 seconds." For these advertisers, the view count is less critical. In fact, they might prefer not to see their view counters going up too fast, since each of these are paid ad-views. Therefore, more is not necessarily better, and advertisers are mindful of this metric.

But if your advertisement is your product, then you are basically paying to promote your work! Even if it costs you a cent per couple views, its a view right? Let them come.

Even better as it can function as both! It's the best of two worlds: you attain the marketing and publicity benefits of an advertisement, coupled with the view count typical of a content creator. The more views a video accumulates, the higher the likelihood that people will become interested in watching it organically, creating a win-win situation. But the grey line lies right there. Is a Music Video an Advertisement or a Product?

Music videos emerged from the necessity to introduce music into the emerging "new Radio": Television. Music programs faced a challenge when presenting a new release from an artist, as there was little visual content to accompany the audio. The options were limited to showcasing the LP cover, maybe an awkward presenter dancing (which often proved cringe-worthy), or compiling past artist performances – none of which effectively served as an advertisement for the new release. The solution? Allow the artists to create videos that complemented their new music, providing a visual component to the viewing experience.

As music videos initially featured artists simply singing and playing their songs, the concept gradually evolved to spark innovation. The notion emerged that if a passerby caught a glimpse of an enticing image on display, they might be drawn to the music. Consequently, music videos went from a "free" recording of the artist performing the new song to have their own dedicated budget, growing increasingly elaborate. Now, most studios allocate a specific budget for the music video, and these budgets can be substantial. However, all of this is undertaken in the pursuit of advertisement. The more captivating the video, the greater the potential to attract new listeners, individuals who may have initially been drawn in by the video rather than the song itself.

For music idols, the axiom that "showing is just as important as telling" holds significant weight. Their image is, if not entirely, almost everything. Music videos have become indispensable for the promotion of idols, so much so that supplementary content like dance practices and dance performance videos has emerged. While these are typically more cost-effective to produce than full-fledged music videos, they serve as valuable complements. The logic remains consistent – the more views these videos accumulate, the greater the audience for the idol. In theory, a higher view count means more engagement with the idol's content.

So while Music Videos in most industry are on itself an advertisement, mostly an aftertought of the song for "what should we display while the person listen to our new song on Youtube?", for the Idol industry the Music Video is an important publicity tool. Therefore, for them, the double yammy of earning views and advertising their song is totally valid, making the choice to use ad-promotion views on Youtube quite natural.

There have been always a certain controversy about ad-views. In one side, they are inflating the views by people who might (probably) not even watching, or don't like it. All those TVs in a set playlist on bars, restaurants and pubs from around the world in unsubscribed companies that cannot affort Youtube Premium will let them play (come on, that is cheap, a Big-Mac costs more than the monthly subscription, so why is the TV at the local McDonalds showing Youtube Ads on its playlist?). People in their computers who leave a browser tab open with a playlist, so they can take a look sometimes, might also not skip if the ad is not too loud or intrusive. And even those who watched it with full free-will are not exactly fans or viewers, which is what most people associate with big view numbers.

In the other hand, Music Videos are advertisements, and they work to promote an artist work. The random customer at that restaurant, the lazy desktop worker who can't be botthered to skip, or even that kind person who let the ad run might, who knows, actually like the song! and then the magic of publicity works! They get to know it, they google the artist, then add the MV to their playlist .... the next thing you know, they are at 3:00 in the morning laying on the ground waiting that TowerRecords to open so they can be one of the first to buy the new album of their new favourite artist! #Lifegoals!?

In many industries, music videos may be considered a modest form of advertisement or an afterthought when pondering what visuals to accompany a song on platforms like YouTube. However, for idols, music videos serve as crucial publicity tools. Consequently, the dual benefit of gaining views and promoting their song is highly relevant for them. There is no good or bad judgement, it is just a very good advertisement strategy, even if most of the public is not aware that those views are not really real.

Youtube Charts is kind of a big thing, specially today. When it was introduced, Youtube didn't even bat the eye: just list the top 100 videos with most views this week and be done with it, can't get any harder. Can it?

From a technical standpoint, any entity responsible for a reputable chart bears the potential liability for its influence on viewers. Therefore, YouTube could be held accountable for inaccurate data, particularly if a video gains an undeserved top position in their chart. Up until 2015, when YouTube True-View truly gained prominence, the platform could evade scrutiny as the authenticity of views was challenging to ascertain. Without a precise view count, someone departing with a few thounsand dollars still had a small impact on videos requiring millions of views to chart. Moreover, there was a risk of YouTube detecting and removing paid views.

However, it seems that the team implementing YouTube True-View failed to communicate this system's existence to the team overseeing the charts. Suddenly, YouTube had a mechanism for inflating views, allowing not only promoters but anyone to manipulate the view counter. It wasn't until late 2019, likely prompted by concerns from individuals who observed irregular chart numbers, that YouTube commenced the practice of not including ad-views in their weekly (and now daily) charts.

So, if any figure on the YouTube Charts represents the "real" number of views (keeping in mind that YouTube may not detect every bot), whereas the view count visible on the video itself includes ad-views, the distinction is fairly straightforward: The difference between YouTube Charts Views and the Public Counter views is essentially the total of ad-views.

The challenge is that a video must chart on the top 100 for its organic views to become discernible. Consequently, for any video that fails to chart, confirming the number of ad-views becomes an elusive task.

Imagine that in a specific week, a particular video displays "V" total views publicly. Two scenarios may unfold: the video charts, but the charted number of views is distinct, let's call it "V-real." Given our knowledge of the actual view count (the charted "V-real"), calculating the number of ad-views becomes a simple subtraction: "V-ads" = "V" - "V-real."

In the second scenario, where the video doesn't chart, but had a total of "V" views that could have potentially charted (i.e., surpassing the 100th place threshold), we can infer that all views beyond the 100th place are ad-views. Therefore, we can determine the minimum ad-views as "V" - "V-100th-place." We might not know how many of the remaining views are ad-views, but at least we have this baseline minimum.

The only instance where our information becomes uncertain is if the video didn't chart on YouTube Chart. At this juncture, our knowledge is limited. While statistical methodologies could potentially provide an estimate, past experiences indicate that fans tend to perceive such estimates as inflating the count of ad-views (in their view, possibly none), while non-fans argue that the estimate is conservative and underestimates the true figure (presumably they think nearly all). Consequently, a decision was made by this site to discontinue the provision of statistical estimates and instead rely on the known metric: the difference between YouTube Chart views and the public counter..

Case in point, let's examine this week in Babymonster's Batter up.

Estimate daily ad-views for Batter up. Youtube only offers weekly totals, so the daily views above are estimates, but the current total estimate actually matches the actual value, so its a fairly good estimate

During the week from 2024-01-04 to 2024-01-11 (following the Thursday-to-Wednesday format used by YouTube for chart weeks, probably based on the Nielsen week), the "Batter Up" MV had 20.8 million views. Cross-referencing this with the YouTube Charts for that week, "Batter Up" was listed with only 5.1 million views. Consequently, we can ascertain that during that specific week, it garnered a total of 15.7 million ad-views. Considering it had already amassed approximately 94 million ad-views in the preceding weeks, the cumulative count reached 109 million ad-views as of January 11 (and based on daily views and likes, this figure continued to grow and stopped at 130M eventually).

While the discussion on how YouTube ad-views are detected seems to have reached a conclusion, another pertinent question arises: Why did YG break the record in ad-promotion investment for their new girl group?

It might appear inconsequential when a major company like YG, known for creating maximum hype around their new group, is seen investing significant funds on YouTube. However, a closer examination of the larger context raises a critical question: Did they truly invest in publicity?

The single doesn't have a Physical copy, which should sell like hot cakes as potential fans want first hands on the debut of the "next big thing" (Considering the lineage of BlackPink, the anticipation for physical copies wouldn't be unwarranted).

They didn't promote the song on music shows or any other platform apart from YouTube. Even their dance performances got investment in ad-views. Consequently, if you're not actively following K-pop news outlets or YouTube (especially if you lack Premium but are interested in K-pop, as Batter Up is likely to have been served as ad to you at least once), the existence of Babymonster might remain unknown, courtesy of YG's minimal promotional efforts.

They even barelly scratched physical promotion, basically keeping a lid on the members and even putting one on hiatus on day one.

And this lack of exposition is "paying off". Batter Up only charted on the first week at a very discreet 181th place, then nothing. And for an YG hyped release that is 7 weeks online, it has only 74M real views (about a third from the very first week, when the hype was still alive). Later off, their Struck in the Middle MV also went on to be a major ad-view behemoth with well over 80M adviews on itself, and subsequent videos continued the trend. Adding up Batter Up, Struck in the Middle and the dance versions of Batter Up, they invested easilly over US$100,000 dollars on Youtube. Promoting on Youtube is ok, but only promoting on Youtube isn't, it should be part of a strategy, not the strategy on itself. The Ad-strategy would just get even bigger with "Sheesh" and its nearly 150M ads (the new record-holder as of mid 2024).

So, why invest such a substantial amount on YouTube despite the notable missteps and omissions since release? Well, to be fair, delving into the intricacies of this decision could be a subject for a separate analysis. However, if we were to make bet, one word comes to mind:

Incompetence.

YG is sinking, and sinking fast, with artists and even their subsidiary "Black Label" departing (The irony is not lost that Rosé chose to move to Black Label when she departed YG), with the only really active artist being Akmu (and the aging Blackpink group, but no longer their members).

After Sheesh released to much fanfare and flop, with similar low Organic views, poor streaming, one music show award after several losses, and arguably moderate sales for a third release (fans are fast to claim it was the biggest "debut" physical sale of any Girl Group, except you can't really call it a debut since they were over 6 month old and had 2 prior releases. IVE, for instance, had 1.5 million sales on their third release, NewJeans had over 1 million sales), its hard to pretend Babymonster marketing strategy payed off, specially considering they had the hype of being YG next big group after Blackpink. Either their failure was because the marketing worked, but their music is terrible; or their music is good, but their marketing was terrible - you decide.

Currently, the only glimmer of a future for YG seems to rest with Babymonster. There's a possibility that they initially intended to make a significant investment in the group, starting with a substantial investment in YouTube. However, the strategy may not have unfolded as planned, resulting in cutting their losses. Unfortunately, due to additional oversight or incompetence, it seems they forgot they can simply stop the YouTube campaign and reclaim the remaining funds (if they stopped it 2 weeks ago, they would have probably saved half the investment). Consequently, "Batter Up" has maintained its position as the most promoted music video on YouTube for six consecutive weeks, setting a new record. Notably, it has become the first artist (particularly in the K-pop sphere, as non-Kpop genres typically don't allocate as much to YouTube ads) to achieve 100 million (eventually 130 million) ad-views. YG would go on to beat their own record, taking Sheesh to 150 million ad-views.

As of June 2024, despite thousands invested on Ads, the lackluster proper promotion invested on regular methods have "paid off". For such a hyped group and Ad-investment, Babymonster barelly scratched any chart or attention, being at best just at the average. Trying to jump-start a group with Advertisement only have, once again, proved not to work. Maybe they could have had a better reception if more was invested in creativity, proper promotions, appearances and general artistic quality instead of advertising "whatever you got".

But, Congratulations on 100M ads YG.

Update: As pointed out by one of our readers, there is a chance this is actually a strategy that relies on the fans ignorance on the fact that these views are not-organic, and that they all look at the view as a symbol of success, specially foreign fans. Thus, creating this huge amont of views (and simultaneously flooding the internet with ads) the goal might not be to promote Batter Up, but rather create hype for the next "real" release. Its worth thinking about, specially considering the number of people who honestly think views are an important metric.

Screenshot below illustrates you can pause or end an ad-campaign at any time, you can use the money to other campaigns or withdrawl from the google account. We tested it ;)