Above is one of my 2 year old nephew's favourite channels. He watches them everyday. For his parents who work from home, it's the greatest thing. If an ad comes up, he cries and they know something is up.
However, they are clicking the ok button on the TV far too often per video cause of this.
They run that 90+ sponsored content so frequently it's become crap. I've seen Land Rover ads, the one above is a house, and the most annoying is when they run other cartoons like Thomas the Tank Engine or something. If the kid wanted that, no problem. But right now the singing cats are his jam. Cars, property? Someone is paying actual money to get ads in front of 2 year old kids?
Tell me this isn't a scam.
This is the channel setting it that way. I'm not defending YouTube, but the channel knows exactly what they are doing.
To blast ads to the wrong target audience? At some point, the ad owner will see a decline in returns. We had 1 million views and less than 0.1% returns in the form of enquiries/sales. Seems like a totally bad investment.
Putting ads targeted to parents on kids' shows is as old as kids' shows, man. That's not a new thing or specific to YouTube
But the parents aren't watching the ads or the shows They are in the working from home office. So all they do is press ok and move on. But I can see your point.
The algorithm doesn’t know that they’re not there
It's not just targeting parents. It's also general market advertising. Some ads are meant to be played widely, usually to increase general brand awareness and aren't targeted. Those ads will play everywhere ads are enabled, regardless of the demographic.