ADWEEK: What are the top-line messages you want ad buyers walking out of Brandcast with?
Downey: It’s a fun show: It’s the one advertisers love to come to because it showcases the best of YouTube. The biggest thing we want to communicate is that YouTube continues to be the future of media.
Our platform is much more than TV alone, and we like to focus on how viewership has evolved across a multitude of screens. We’ve been the No. 1 streamer for three years running, and Shorts are being watched by billions of users.
We also want to showcase that YouTube is the ultimate destination for entertainment. People make decisions on YouTube. They connect, build community, and seek authenticity from creators. You can do all of those things in one place, and that redefines what a media platform is.
Creator buying has been a thread through your last several upfronts. What’s new this year?
Everyone knows creator marketing works, but we think the opportunity is bigger on our platform than anywhere else. Last year, we launched creator takeovers, which allowed brands to take over a channel when a creator launched something.
In the fall, we started to play with channel slates, previewing upcoming content from creators to brands. That has helped spur integration efforts and brand deals. We’ll be talking about those in a more extended way at Brandcast.
When we get into an upfront discussion now, we can put shows in front of brands that match them directly. That gives brands a premium position on specific things.
We’ve also launched YouTube Creator Partnerships, which we announced at NewFronts. Brands and creators can log into a system and be given suggested pairings. That has created a lot more scale and puts brands in front of tuned-in audiences with authenticity.
If you have a Creator Partnership on Shorts, you get about a 30% increase in conversion lift.
Is the pitch that advertisers should be buying directly from creators rather than from YouTube?
We have more advertisers asking us to purchase directly from creators, and we’ve facilitated that a lot over the last 6 to 12 months. That aligns to how people want to buy upfront.
A lot of the conversation around CTV right now is the branding-versus-performance tension.
How does YouTube fit into that?
A brand doesn’t have to choose between branding and performance; they can do both. We generate brand lift with creators, and we drive long- and short-term ROI through other platforms and formats.
YouTube delivers double the long-term ROAS of TV and other platforms. We drive action in the short and long term. Hopefully, advertisers understand that you can work with creators, tap into commerce, and let our AI-powered tools scale creative and maximize effectiveness.
