THE ANALYSIS OF CHILD YOUTUBERS’ VIDEOS IN THAILAND TO DEVELOP APPROPRIATE YOUTUBE ADVERTISING

YouTube is a popular entertainment website among Thai users, especially young children and youths. The objective of this study is to analyze child YouTubers’ videos in Thailand to develop appropriate YouTube advertising. The research method applied was the analysis of 108 videos by Thai child YouTubers with an age under 14 years old to analyze the videos’ content presenting products. The selected videos were based on subscribers on YouTube as shown on Social Blade’s ranking under the entertainment category in 2019. This study analyzed child YouTubers’ videos based on a previous study by Pastor, Ongkrutraksa and Vizcaíno-Laorga (2020) in five categories; 1. Frequency or number of times brand names and products appear; 2. Types of products; 3. Formats of advertising; 4. Marketing resources used in the videos that are associated with the products; 5. Appearance of brand names in the names of the videos. The results demonstrate that child YouTubers usually feature brand names only once in their videos but show the product throughout the videos. The most popular product is food & drink. The advertising format mostly used is the use of a product for entertainment. In addition, the marketing information sources mostly shown is subscription. The use of brand names in a video’s name was found to be unpopular. The results suggest that these child YouTubers’ videos are not always identified as an advertisement, and this can be harmful to vulnerable children. Thus, to develop appropriate YouTube advertising, it is vital to focus on promoting ethical conduct, policies and regulations for child YouTubers’ videos