Looks like the election campaign of a young Liberal Democrat candidate has nosedived after pictures of him drunk out of his mind were posted onto his MySpace and Bebo sites by his ‘mates’ ….and then picked up by a local Scottish newspaper. Curtains too for the biker who filmed himself doing 170 mph and pulling wheelies on the A1 with a bike mounted camera and posted his antics on YouTube. Unluckily for him, he’s been identified by police and faces prison for reckless driving. No doubt if the ‘Angel Tube Skier’ (pic) is identified, he’ll get six points on his Oyster card.

While all this is going on, brands aspire to get their message out onto social media sites like YouTube and MySpace. Just as building a meaningless brand website was all the rage in the late 1990’s, so it seems a presence on YouTube is now de-rigeur - or worse still - “cool” and “in touch” with young web users.

Recently, I took a look at the YouTube channel of a reasonably well known FMCG drinks brand. It featured some short films about the product and a selection of TV ads. Launched in 2006, the channel has 95 subscribers and the best ranking film has had around 6,000 views. If we accept that these numbers represent a low level of interest, then the challenge for FMCG brands is firstly to understand how consumers use sites like YouTube and secondly, to understand how it can work as a communication channel for brand owners.

Simply showing brand or product film is not compelling. As John Bell, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy PR in Washington points out, “Nobody wants to watch a long TV commercial filled with brand messages. A simply clever :90-1:00 TV spot does not make for compelling video in the YouTube universe. Period.” He argues that the current vogue of simply uploading content onto YouTube is an easy way of appearing to be “involved with ’social media’ without having to actually enter a two-way conversation.”

So how do brands crack YouTube as a communication channel? Chad Hurley, CEO and cofounder of YouTube gives us some advice: “Advertisers now have a highly targeted opportunity for aligning their brands alongside the entertainment experience people are enjoying on YouTube.”

We have to accept that the content coming from brands is generally less rewarding to consumers than de-facto entertainment. So, even though we are in the Web 2.0 environment, the best way for most brands to communicate may well be something akin TV advertising’s good old fashioned “ads/sponsorship around content” model.