Mindshare’s Natalya Namts, Associate Director, Digital Investment, gives us the scoop on last night’s YouTube Brandcast.
- The big talent onstage:
- Talent is always the highlight at Brandcast and has everyone guessing for weeks. YouTube didn’t disappoint: Dua Lipa and Daddy Yankee performed live, and stars like Alicia Keys and Tiffany Haddish announced new content they’re producing.
- That said, the real theme of the night were the creators that power the content on YouTube – many shared their skills and stories onstage, including Simone Giertz and Dude Perfect.
2. The announcements that caught your eye:
- Ad-supported content. Previously, YouTube Originals were only available via their paid subscription service, YouTube Premium, and were ad-free. But now, YouTube Originals will be made available for free through an ad-supported model. As part of that, they announced a third season of Cobra Kai and a “secret” project with Justin Bieber.
- Personalization. This isn’t new to the marketplace – we all know people go on YouTube to find personalized content tailored to their interests, be it cooking, robots, gaming, etc. But it was interesting to see that they made this theme such a focus of the event, and talking about how brands can make their ad messaging personalized for the consumer interests.
- Incremental reach. They cited a study from Nielsen Ad Rating commissioned by Google, about how YouTube drives incremental reach at a more balanced frequency versus TV.
3. Implications for marketers:
- It all comes back to the value exchange for consumers – what you can give consumers for engaging with your ad. With YouTube, it’s access to their exclusive premium content. With other media platforms, it could be anything from offering a free movie brought by a brand, to offering an hour of free listening on an audio platform.
- Marketers should be thinking about how they can pair the type of programming someone is watching with the specific type of ad experience, be it through something like DCO, a direct integration into a specific show, and more.
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Incremental reach against light TV viewers is important. Consider platforms like YouTube and other premium video sources to deliver on a light TV viewer that might be hard to reach through traditional TV.
4. Challenges for the publisher:
- Competition is only growing, as ad supported content is exploding and there’s so many choices for consumers. YouTube needs to continue to differentiate themselves through new original programming that appeals to different types of audiences.
- Brand safety obviously continues to be an evolving topic for YouTube, although there have been good steps made.
5. What was different about this NewFront, and from the types of deals we do every day with clients?
- YouTube’s Brandcast is the must-see event. They go “big” with their music performances with big name talent. Several times during the presentation, we were told to enjoy the “show” that was to come.
6. Anything else we should know?
- Some of the stats mentioned: 250 million hours of YouTube are watched everyday and they have two billion monthly active users.
In a week filled with lots of content, sales pitches, and very little sleep, Mindshare is brought you a debrief on some of the biggest NewFront events with the implications for marketers, the challenges for publishers, and more. Check out the other recaps from the past week here.
