YOUTUBE CASTING ENTERTAINMENT PREFERENCES OF RECRUITED AUDIENCE AND HYPOTHETICAL LINKS TO TARGETED ADVERTISING

ABSTRACT This research titled “YouTube-Casting Entertainment Preferences of Recruited Audience and Hypothetical Links to Targeted Advertising” ascertained the demographic spread of YouTube-casting entertainment content preferences of recruited audience and figured out the extent to which YouTube-casting entertainment content-based advertisements are targeted. This research was hinged on Uses and Gratification theory; agenda-setting theory. The methodology adopted in this study was quasi-experimental research design, which included survey as the research instrument of data collection. The sample size for this study was 64. Some of the major findings identified were that female audience are significantly more engaged with genres such as Musical, Comedy, Reality Shows, and Romance, both in terms of number and percentage. While Male audience, although fewer in the sample, show stronger relative preference for Action and Documentaries genres and that YouTube-casting entertainment advertisements are poorly aligned with the content being viewed, because minority of respondents experienced ads that perfectly matched the video content. From the findings, it was concluded that individuals who had previously viewed genres such as Reality Shows, Romance, and Musical entertainment were somewhat more likely to prefer those same genres. From the findings, it was recommended that Future researchers should explore how psychological traits, values, lifestyles, or interests beyond gender affect preferences for different YouTube content genres.