After 11 Years in Digital Video, YouTube Wants to Take on TV-Sized Budgets

This is how it's challenging the networks

It isn't always easy to pair up the suits of the marketing world with those freewheeling kids that make the buzziest videos in the digisphere. The two sides—and more importantly, their respective brands—must have chemistry. So last July at VidCon, the annual digital video conference held in Anaheim, Calif., YouTube set up a "speed dating" event, hoping to play matchmaker between advertisers and creators. Among the talent mingling with marketers was Rachel Levin, a rising beauty vlogger who immediately hit it off with the people behind the anti-smoking initiative Truth.

"She wasn't originally on our radar," admits Justin Hooper, group creative director at 72andSunny, the agency handling Truth.

She'll be on just about everyone's radar this week at the Digital Content NewFronts in New York where YouTube will pitch Levin and other charismatic stars from its creators' stable at its Brandcast event.

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