People are streaming more than ever before. But one thing remains consistent: When they’re looking for something personally relevant to them, they turn to YouTube.
Whether it’s celebrating this year’s graduating class with the likes of President and Mrs. Obama, Beyoncé and BTS in YouTube Originals’ “Dear Class of 2020,” reminiscing over Game 6 of the 1993 NBA finals or attempting quarantine glow-ups from James Charles, YouTube’s extensive video library creates a truly meaningful and personal experience for viewers.
And, this year more than ever, we’re seeing people make time for what matters. On June 13, viewers tuned in to watch “Bear Witness, Take Action,” a YouTube Originals live stream that assembled artists and activists to learn, heal and raise awareness for the Equal Justice Initiative. This was part of a new multi-year, $100 million-dollar fund to help amplify the voices and stories of Black Creators.
Today, at our ninth annual NewFront event, we celebrated moments like these through a more personal experience for brands and advertisers with “Brandcast Delivered.”
Throughout the completely reimagined virtual event, we celebrated the diversity of YouTube’s voices and content. Featuring appearances from creators like Lilly Singh, Questlove, Emma Chamberlain and Gordon Ramsay, we constructed a “personal primetime” for each attendee based on their passions and shared how YouTube’s deep connection to people’s lives means better results no matter a marketer’s goal – from reach and awareness to action.
Drive better results throughout the consumer journey
The first and last litmus test for any video platform — be it TV, OLV, OTT, mobile or some new acronym that doesn’t exist yet, is simple: Does it work? On every metric — from incremental audience, to new customers, to sales — YouTube delivers.
Today, we showcased how effective YouTube strategies can produce results through the announcement of the 2020 YouTube Works award recipients. The winners, honored for using YouTube to drive smart results, included Gillette with their “We Believe Campaign” in the Force for Good category, Samsung’s Galaxy Note10 brilliant strategy for the Media Innovation category, Hulu’s “sellouts” campaign winning the Ingenious Insights category for their 100% honest influencer campaign, and Bacardi’s “Beat Machine” bringing home the Grand Prix.
The success of these campaigns stems not only from their understanding of how to leverage YouTube’s full suite of ad solutions, but their belief in YouTube’s unique mission to give everyone a voice. Learn more about the smart ways these brands and others used YouTube to drive incredible business results on yt.be/works.
Reach your audience across screens, and within new content
To drive meaningful results, the first step is reaching customers where they are watching. While YouTube overall reaches more people age 18-49 than all linear TV networks combined,4 we’ve seen a dramatic shift in viewing patterns, as people increasingly watch on connected TVs. In the U.S. alone, over 100 million people watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their TV screens each month.5 And, according to Comscore, YouTube makes up 41% of ad-supported video streaming watch time.6
Last month, we announced YouTube Select — a reimagination of Google Preferred — to make it easier to reach your audiences where they are watching, and find the right content for your brand. YouTube Select includes the same popular creator content, plus a dedicated streaming TV lineup that combines the best of YouTube TV and core lineups content, both on TV screens.
YouTube Select also includes YouTube Originals programming, including the breakout hit, “Instant Influencer with James Charles,” which hit over 50 million views in its first month alone;7 “Retro Tech,” featuring tech guru Marques Brownlee; and “Liza on Demand.” And they’re all returning for new seasons.
Additionally, today we announced that Demi Lovato will be returning for a new YouTube Originals project. Demi’s new docuseries will be a follow-up to her 2017 documentary, “Simply Complicated,”which will bring you on her personal and musical journey over the last three years. David Blaine will also be joining the YouTube Originals slate with a first-of-its-kind special event. We are excited to share more on these shows, among many others, throughout the year.
Uncover new audience insights and convert demand into action
YouTube has become an important part of the modern purchase journey with 70 percent of YouTube viewers saying they bought a brand as a result of seeing it on our platform.8 We’re introducing tools to help marketers understand their audience, as well as complement their awareness initiatives with campaigns that drive conversions.
As people turn to YouTube to discover their next purchase, we’re also seeing an increase in conversions from ads on the platform. In the last twelve months, we’ve been able to help our customers achieve over 950 million conversions9 – generating quality leads, boosting web traffic, and achieving new sales on YouTube.
Last week, we announced Video action campaigns, a simpler and more cost-effective way to drive action on YouTube. It automatically brings video ads that drive action to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partner — all within one campaign. To make it even simpler, any future inventory that becomes available, like the What to Watch Next feed, will be automatically included. This way you can save time to focus on strategic initiatives, such as crafting the right creative and messaging for your audiences.
For today’s viewers, YouTube is a deeply personal experience. For advertisers and brands, so are our offerings. With flexible solutions across marketing objectives, buyers can uniquely reach and influence audiences based on what’s most important to them.
Check out #Brandcast on Twitter and LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel to see highlights from the show.
Cenk Bulbul, Director of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube
2 NCSolutions Sales Effect, 2018-2019. Base: a list of YouTube studies selected and compiled by NCSolutions with statistically significant results at an 80% confidence level. This list includes 59 statistically significant YouTube studies across 23 CPG advertisers
3 Commissioned Nielsen MMM Meta-Analysis, 2016-2018. Base: a list of studies selected and compiled by Nielsen, consisting of all available CPG studies completed in 2016-2018 that contain YouTube Select, Other Digital, and TV results. This list includes 45 studies for US Brands across all CPG categories. Effectiveness is defined as total incremental sales per 1,000 impressions. Studies were excluded if either channel had fewer than 500 impressions. Incremental offline retail sales measured for TV represents average across all TV broadcasters.
4 Custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google. Desktop, mobile and TV fusion. TV measurement of Total TV. Reach among persons 18-49 (Live + 7, one minute qualifier), television only, March 1-31, 2020. Results among US TV Households.
5 YouTube Internal Data, US, March 2020
6 Comscore, OTT Intelligence, Mar. 2020, U.S.
7 YouTube Analytics, April-May 202
8 Google/Talkshoppe, US, whyVideo study, n=2000 A18-64 Genpop video users, Feb 2020.
9 Google data, Global, May 2019 – Apr 2020. Total conversions reported for TrueView for action campaigns.