Author(s): Evaristus Adesina, Mowaninuoluwa Owoeye, Babatunde Adeyeye, Yartey Darlynton, Stella Aririguzoh, Thelma Ekanem
This study seeks to find out the millennials’ attention and retention towards advertisements on the YouTube platform and how advertisers utilize this knowledge to effectively influence the purchase decision of the millennials. The study is anchored on the Individual Differences Theory. The quantitative method of survey was employed in eliciting data from 391 randomly selected respondents on which the multi-stage sampling technique was utilized in delimiting the large population of Covenant University. The findings show a little more than average (34.7%) prefer to pay attention to skippable advertisements as compared to non-skippable (34.2%); video discovery (16.6%) and non-video advertisements (14.5%). Demographically the study found that the male gender pays attention to a wider range of advert categories compared to their female counterparts who pay the most attention to non-skippable advertisements. It was further revealed that majority (29.9%) of the respondents do not remember YouTube advertisements beyond the time frame of 30 minutes. Although 65.9% have not purchased a product based on their exposure to YouTube advertisements, however, 54.6% are willing to purchase such products based on their advertisement preferences. This study concludes that YouTube advertisement categories play a significant role in millennials attention and retention span. The study recommends that advertisers should effectively utilize YouTube advertising categories in reaching their heterogeneous millennials.