Product placement is often seen as one potential way that video publishers can monetize their work. In fact, there are already a number of startups – like PlaceVine and Tadcast – looking to connect content producers with advertisers that want to buy product placement slots.

Not surprisingly, it’s come to light that YouTube wants a piece of this action. MediaWeek reports that the world’s top video site has “issued written notifications to several producers who have inked branded integration deals directly with advertisers.”

Technically, it’s against YouTube’s TOS to upload videos to post ad-supported videos without YouTube’s permission. More significantly, it means that YouTube will soon launch its own process for integrating brand placements within user-uploaded videos, according to one of MediaWeek’s sources.

This isn’t the first time YouTube is positioning itself to generate more money from their publisher community. The company already has a program in place for allowing video producers to sell their own overlay ads within their clips and share the revenue. This makes sense – it’s YouTube’s bandwidth and distribution that is facilitating views, while the publisher may be able to get better ad rates by leveraging their existing relationships with sponsors.

Meanwhile, it might be bad news for the startups looking to put themselves in between brand placement advertising and video producers. While they still might be able to facilitate relationships between these two parties, depending on the scope of YouTube’s to-be-determined brand placement product, there might not be a huge market for their services.

Additional YouTube Resources from Mashable

- 20+ Greasemonkey Scripts for Improving Your YouTube Experience

- 20+ Firefox Plugins to Enhance Your YouTube Experience

- Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources

Tags: advertising, product placement, youtube

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