YouTube Wants to Be Seen as Better Than TV

YouTube is once again revving its pitch to advertisers on how it's better than TV. “[Advertisers] need to be where people are and in TV, that is YouTube,” said Tara Walpert Levy, vice president, Americas at YouTube. That’s the crux of the platform’s pitch to advertisers during its first appearance during upfront week. YouTube moved its signature Brandcast event from Newfronts to the week traditionally for TV publishers, emphasizing to advertisers its importance in the burgeoning connected TV space. CTV is expected to command over $19 billion in ad spend this year, a 32% increase from 2021, according to eMarketer. While demand still exceeds supply, the space is getting increasingly crowded. Subscription stalwarts Disney+ and Netflix both said they were planning to sell ad space soon, adding more complexity for ad buyers. YouTube has 50% of the ad-supported over-the-top supply, and over a third of YouTube’s viewers are not on any other ad-supported streamer, Walpert Levy said at a press briefing this morning ahead of its signature Brandcast event tomorrow. If popular YouTube creator MrBeast was his own streaming service, he’d have more subscribers than the next three most popular ad-supported streaming services, although comparing YouTube subscribers to streaming subscribers isn't apples to apples, the company said. While the user-generated content nature of YouTube prevents it from emphasizing a slate of new programming, the platform did highlight what kind of content is palatable to viewers. The company shared research showing four key pillars that describe winning content—relevant, intellectual, sensorial and emotional. The company touted that viewers found YouTube performed better on the relevance, intellectual and emotional pillars than other streaming services and TV, according to the company’s research. Sensorial—or content that appeals to the senses—was the only category in which other streamers outperformed YouTube, though according to the company’s research, it was also the attribute viewers found least important. “Giving viewers choice fundamentally changes what content is,” Walpert Levy said. Competing with content Walpert Levy also said the company plans to announce later this year how it plans to scale the monetization of YouTube Shorts. The simultaneous emphasis on short form content to compete with TikTok and long form content to encourage more advertising and TV viewing may seem like competing forces, but Walpert Levy says the most successful creators are multi-format. Mark Rober, a science-focused YouTube creator with 21 million subscribers who attended the press briefing, said he was leaning into longer form content because so much of his audience was watching on TV. On parent Alphabet’s first quarter earnings call last month, YouTube reported the slowest growth of the company’s other advertising segments, noting particular softness with direct response advertisers who have felt the brunt of reduced targeting effectiveness as a result of Apple’s privacy changes. YouTube Is Phasing Out Brand Awareness Targeting Tool

TV Upfronts

During Upfront Week, YouTube Wants to Be Seen as Better Than TV

The platform says it offers true incremental reach

Catherine Perloff

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Catherine Perloff