YouTube has 20,000 advertisers, double last year's level

"YouTube is busy funding content channels in hopes of bringing more brand dollars to video. But it turns out that like search, there is a long tail for video advertising. YouTube said it has 20,000 different advertisers running campaigns, a 100% increase from last year.
"The 20,000 advertisers are all separate companies that are running campaigns with us," said YouTube's senior product manager, Phil Farhi. "Everything from major brands to the smaller, newer types of advertisers."
It turns out video can be a pretty powerful tool for tiny advertisers, ones that you won't find on TV. One example: GoPro, a manufacturer of helmet-mounted cameras that upload directly to YouTube and other platforms. Its ads have garnered millions of views and are shared all over the internet.
"They are not a Super Bowl-sized advertiser, but they work really well with a subset of the YouTube community," Mr. Farhi said. "And they are running most of our ad formats." That's one way to take advantage of the audience that's available on YouTube -- niche communities waiting for their kind of product.
Mr. Farhi said that as of this year, 98 out of 100 of Ad Age's top 100 advertisers are now advertising with YouTube. The challenge is increasing those budgets through more "premium" inventory, hence why YouTube's content efforts now under way."

Source:  AdAge, 14th June 2011