Inside YouTube’s pitch to TV advertisers and why not every journalist can start a Substack

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters.

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0:47Jasmine Enberg: YouTube generated over$60 billion in revenue last year. Here's why we think 2026 will be even bigger.

0:59Hi, everyone. As you can see, I'm kicking off our show alone this week as Kaya and I are both traveling. We are going to be in Washington, D.C. for the first ever Creator Summit hosted by the Senate Democrat Strategic Communications Committee or the SEC. We're also going to be interviewing Senator Cory Booker, who is leading the Senate Democrats' efforts in the Creator space. We gave you the highlights from our conversation as well as from the event in today's newsletter and we will share our full interview with Senator Booker next week. In case you missed it, we actually broke the news about the SCC's Creator Summit and we were so excited to be invited but that did mean that we had to shuffle around our schedules and Kaya and I were not able to record at the same time this week.

1:44So instead our show is going to be a little bit different. We're each going to break down a story that has been top of mind for us, and we'll also give you a behind-the-scenes look at how we approach coverage. Later on in the show, you will also hear from Brian Albert, Managing Director of YouTube Media Partnerships and Creative Works. We talked to him all about how the Super Bowl played out on YouTube, what he makes of the Netflix deal spree with creators, as well as the overall state of YouTube's ad business and how creators fit in. So speaking of YouTube, it has been a really big week for the platform.

2:19But when is it not these days? Last week, the company reported that it generated over$60 billion in ad and subscription revenue in 2025. Q4 of last year was also its biggest quarter ever for ad sales, which came in at around 11.4 billion. I have been covering social media companies' earnings reports for years now, and I often get questions about how I start to analyze these reports. And generally speaking, what is in the top of the press release or the top line numbers aren't the most interesting pieces of data. When you've been covering this space for long enough, you generally have a pretty good sense of what's coming next, though I will admit that sometimes there are surprises.

3:01I'll also say that this is true for research reports in general. I'm notorious for going through these reports with a fine-toothed comb and trying to find more interesting pieces of information that may be buried a little bit later on in the report. That's because the best data and information tends to come later, including in these earnings reports. So a lot of times you'll find it in the letter to shareholders or in an answer to an analyst question on an earnings call. That's when you start to get to the quote unquote why behind the numbers. It's also really important to look at these figures in the context of competitors earnings reports or to compare them to previous quarters or look at how the company expects it will perform in the current quarter.

3:46In many cases, what you find is that stocks can dip and rise based on what a company is projecting for the current quarter that they're in, instead of how they actually performed in the previous quarter that they're reporting results on. And finally, there's a little bit of reading of the tea leaves that needs to happen. There are certain things that all of these companies have to report on a quarterly basis, but they can also pick and choose some stats or how they present those stats based on what they think investors will like or what else is going on in the broader landscape. And sometimes what they don't say is just as telling as what they do say.

4:22So a couple of good examples here for Meta because it is the ad business that I know the best. A few years ago, it stopped reporting Facebook user figures individually and instead pivoted to a metric that it called family daily active people. And that includes people who use either Instagram, WhatsApp, or Facebook on a daily basis combined. And this shift really was in an effort to hide the weakness in Facebook's user growth and instead show the sheer size and scale of Metis platforms as a whole. In early 2024, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also name dropped Taylor Swift on an earnings call. And yes, leave it to me to be able to work Taylor Swift into every single episode.

5:05He said that she had just joined the platform Threads. And this was around the time when a lot of investors, the media, and even ordinary people were wondering if Threads had any staying power, if it could ever actually compete with Twitter, which, you know, had long been part of the zeitgeist and conversation. At the time, Taylor Swift had just dropped an album, which had been really popular. And Zuckerberg was clearly trying to position threads as also being part of culture and the zeitgeist. All of that said, though, in YouTube's case, it really was the top line$60 billion revenue figure that caught my eye last quarter.

5:42This was the first time that YouTube has reported total revenue, meaning combined ads and subscriptions. And it comes as the company is making a really big push into paid TV subscriptions. A couple of days ago, Bloomberg reported that it's rolling out a new sports package for YouTube TV, and it'll cost about $65, which is about$20 less than YouTube's standard TV package. $60 billion is also well more than Netflix generated in revenue in 2025. Netflix revenue came in at about$45 billion. Now, the difference here, of course, is that almost all of Netflix's money comes from subscriptions. So, of course, it does also have an ad business.

6:21While only about$20 billion of YouTube's$60 billion in revenue came from subscriptions, the rest came from ads. YouTube has also, of course, surpassed Netflix in time spent, according to estimates from Nielsen that we've covered earlier on this podcast. And Netflix has frequently named its number one competitor in the space. We've heard Netflix executives time and time again really name drop YouTube in earnings calls and most recently in a hearing about potential antitrust concerns around its proposed mega merger with Warner Brothers. The one thing I would say that Netflix does have that YouTube covets is big TV advertisers.

7:00Right before I left eMarketer, last September, I wrote this big report about how YouTube is TV for viewers, but it is not TV for advertisers. And just last week, the Wall Street Journal published a very similar article that laid out the same discrepancy, meaning that I was onto something. Many of YouTube's advertisers are small and medium-sized businesses that buy ads on the platform and generally aren't advertising on TV. That actually makes YouTube's ad business more similar to, say, Meta's or TikToks or other social media companies. And those platforms generate more revenue than YouTube does, at least in the case of Meta, which generated about$200 billion in revenue in 2025.

7:44Of course, big advertisers do activate on YouTube, but a lot of what they do there is organic. So take the Super Bowl, for example, you had a lot of brands who posted their Super Bowl ads on YouTube, even before the game in order to generate some excitement, some buzz and some conversation. And for many of them, it worked. I think Anthropic is a great example. It posted its ad for Claude, which took a swipe at ChatGPT launching ads. And even before the game kicked off on Sunday, it had almost 400 ,000 views. And my LinkedIn feed was blowing up with people talking about it. These big brands also obviously partner with a lot of creators on the platform.

8:26But most of those deals are negotiated without YouTube's involvement. YouTube has been trying to move further into influencer marketing, releasing tools to help brands and creators partner together, also to help advertisers extend their creator campaigns as paid ads. But it is really early days. And if you compare it to some of the tools that are available from other social platforms, they're far more advanced.

8:50Jasmine Enberg: Just look at Meta's paid ad tools, for example. I think a big part of the problem for YouTube when it comes to attracting big TV advertisers is that these advertisers are used to placing ads in predictable pre-planned environments like traditional TV, of course. And that just is not YouTube. YouTube has been trying to bolster its efforts there and make its platform more TV-like, including by nabbing Oscars rights, also leaning in heavily into sports and offering advertisers more premium packages around these big cultural moments. A lot of these packages also include creators and they have been very popular, but this is much harder to scale than say ads bought through a self-serve platform.

9:36Another big problem for YouTube is that while its audience is massive, it is heavily fragmented across channels as well as devices. So yes, a lot of people are watching YouTube on TVs, but a lot of people are also watching YouTube on laptops and smartphones. Now, that's just not the case for traditional TV, there are also over 100 ,000 channels on YouTube based on estimates that I found. And that is way more than in a traditional TV package. And that means that audiences are heavily fragmented across those different channels. So I mean, yes, of course, you have massive creators. Mr. Beast is the biggest example here.

10:13But most of those channels really aren't generating anywhere near as many viewers or engagement. And big TV advertisers, they want big audiences. Again, this is another reason why we see YouTube leaning in so heavily into sports as well as Oscars, because those really do generate wide, massive reach. So then the question becomes, what's next? And we think it's time for YouTube to revisit original programming. YouTube, of course, shuttered its Originals program back in 2022, which provided funding to creators to develop original content for the platform. That included shows like Cobra Kai. And the reason that YouTube gave at the time for ending originals was that it wasn't very good at picking content.

10:57I don't think that's entirely true. I mean, just look at Cobra Kai, it got picked up by Netflix and is incredibly popular there. As with so many of these types of initiatives from these big platforms, it's about timing, right? And YouTube originals was incredibly early and the timing might be better now. Today we have more creators, including Dhar Mann, who are developing pre-planned scripted content for the platform. You also have other podcasters and creators on YouTube like Hot Ones and Good Mythical Morning that are basically modern day talk shows. And not only are people watching this content on TV, they're also doing so during primetime viewing hours, according to some research I conducted last year.

11:40On the creator front, we're also seeing that more of them are willing to abandon YouTube. Now, back in 2022, even a couple of months ago, this seemed unthinkable that they might leave YouTube and abandon their audience and the revenue that they're making there. But under the terms of the Netflix Spotify deal, for example, those podcasters are no longer allowed to post their full episodes on YouTube, though, of course,

12:04Jasmine Enberg: it sounds like they can still post clips in order to promote those shows. Obviously, most creators are not going to be leaving YouTube. But this is a sign that there is more of a willingness to go to another platform than YouTube than there was in the past. And then back to attracting big TV advertisers, because that is what a lot of this boils down to having original content could give YouTube a more premium pre planned predictable slate of programming to offer to advertisers. It would also include creators, which many of these big TV advertisers want to now be associated with so that they can be part of culture.

12:42It could also give YouTube the prestige that it so wants and that, you know, it hasn't necessarily been able to achieve. These shows could also be part of YouTube's TV subscription package, meaning that people would have to pay for that content. And given the emphasis that it now has on subscriptions, this could really help boost those revenues as well. And of course, funding new shows is very expensive, but there are other ways that YouTube could approach this that aren't exactly the same as what it had done previously with originals. One would be to strike, say, an exclusive deal to license this content that is already being developed for YouTube.

13:20This is a similar approach to what Netflix has taken when it structured some of its deals with YouTubers and podcasters. Another would be that it could, you know, fund studios instead of individual shows. And these studios could be developing multiple different types of content. And one key facet in any of these deals could be exclusivity, right? So that these YouTubers couldn't strike deals with say Netflix or Hulu or Disney or any other streamer that's trying to get into the creator space. YouTube has of course said it has no plans to return to original programming. And we asked Brian Albert a little bit more about this.

13:59So make sure you stick around to the end of the episode to hear what he said. But now it's over to Kaya, who's in DC.

14:06Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. As you can see, I'm already in my hotel in DC. This was my 12th flight of the year so far. So we have been living on planes in 2026. I'm extremely grateful for all the travel opportunities so far this year. And I must say, I'm getting pretty pro at packing effectively and quickly. So if you need any tips, let me know. I'm pre-recording this ahead of the Senate Democrat conference and our interview with Senator Booker. The goal of the conference is to engage independent media and creators, which is something that the Democrats have acknowledged that they're behind on compared to Republicans.

14:40Jasmine Enberg: And the timing is interesting because it's aligning with a new wave of journalists going independent. But this time, it's not by choice. The Washington Post had massive layoffs last week, which impacted its sports, international coverage and local news, as well as tech coverage. The company laid off 30 % of all of its employees, which included business positions, as well as more than 300 journalists. There is no sugarcoating this. It's really awful. I've had friends who are impacted and journalists who I've admired and read for many years. And it's not an isolated incident. We've seen cuts across the industry as the underlying business model of journalism is under severe strain.

15:18Jasmine Enberg: It's a really scary moment, especially at a time when AI is making it harder to know what's real and what's not. We need authoritative sources of information more than ever. And it's a really tricky time for media companies because trust and legacy media has also completely plummeted. I think what was so interesting and what I wanted to address today is that there was so much chatter online after the Washington Post layoffs being like, well, like these reporters should go start Substacks or independent newsletters. And Beehive, our newsletter provider, even offered Washington Post journalists impacted by the cuts a free year on Beehive with no strings attached to kind of take on that venture.

15:53Jasmine Enberg: And look, some of them have and will. Jeff Fowler, I think, is a great example. He's a longtime tech columnist from The Washington Post. Before that, he was at The Wall Street Journal. His sub stack already has more than 10 ,000 subscribers. But as a columnist, he's already had a following and has built a name for himself covering consumer tech. But the truth is, it's not just as simple as starting your own newsletter, of course. In a matter of minutes, you can actually do so. But many journalists shouldn't or won't or can't. You know, it's inherently risky to go out on your own. And there's so many different factors here, right?

16:26Jasmine Enberg: Like some people will have a hard time staying consistent. But others, depending on the type of work they do, will have a hard time actually earning a sustainable living from this, right? Investigative work, for example, is really hard to monetize. It takes a lot of time and resources. As an independent journalist or a journalist working at a big corporation, you have legal threats from powerful companies and people. You need budget for travel. You need time for research. All of that is really challenging. And to build a business model around that is even harder, right? If you think about paying for a Substack or Beehive newsletter, you're going to be expecting content frequently, right?

17:02Jasmine Enberg: Investigative reports can take months or sometimes even years. And I think many amazing journalists are great writers, great interviewers, great at researching, but they don't have the business background or desire to really run the operational side of building a business. And plus, many of them will need health insurance and other benefits that are provided by a company, right, that are expensive on your own. And also not to mention, there are so many newsletters, so you have to compete for time and attention. I think it's worth digging into the numbers a little bit more. In June 2025, at the Future of Influence Summit that I ran at The Information, Substack CEO Chris Best said that over 50 creators on Substack earn more than$1 million per year.

17:45Jasmine Enberg: It's an amazing stat. I mean, it's amazing that that many people have been able to turn their newsletters into a business like that. But that actually accounts for less than 1 % of the 50 ,000 publishers that earn money on Substack. And those publishers also include traditional brands and traditional publishers, not just independent voices. So I think it's mirroring what we've seen across the creator economy, right? Like not every TikTok creator is rolling in it, right? Many of them are struggling to turn this into a full-time career and a lucrative career. And that's playing out in the newsletter world as well.

18:18Jasmine Enberg: I think the other factor here that's important to remember is that as people get more news from social media, I'm very worried about kind of the rise of news influencers who have no training as journalists who don't know the basics of journalism. And by the way, where do you think they're getting their information from? The news, like CNN or The New York Times. They're often not on the ground themselves doing the reporting, whether that's from Minneapolis or from a war zone. And I'm not saying that these news influencers can't do great work, but some of the best ones that I've seen are former journalists because they have the standards and experience and knowledge of how to do this job right.

18:54Jasmine Enberg: There's space for both and we need both, right? People read Scalable, but they also read Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. It's not one or the other. And people are coming to different sources for different reasons. So I think these layoffs from the Washington Post, of course, will result in more independent newsletters from reporters, but many of them are not going to go this route or will not stay on this route. And there are, unfortunately, so many of these reporters looking for jobs than the industry can absorb. And that's something all of us should be really concerned about. I also wanted to take this moment to share a little bit more about how we approach our work at Scalable.

19:28Jasmine Enberg: You know, Jasmine obviously comes from a research and analyst background, but she also went to journalism school. And I obviously come from a traditional news background. I went to George Washington University right here in DC. And I had the opportunity to learn from journalists who were often actually still working in their fields while they were professors. One of my professors, Cheryl Thompson, is an award-winning investigative reporter now for NPR. Before that, she was for 22 years at the Washington Post. And I learned about investigative journalism from her when I was at CNN, right? When I would write sensitive stories, they would go through a very rigorous fact checking and standards process.

20:01Jasmine Enberg: So I carry all of that training and experience from traditional newsrooms into our work at Scalable, including very rigorous sourcing standards, fact checking. It's really the same process as what I did at the information and CNN or what Jasmine did with her research reports. We fact check what we write, we reach out to companies for comment, even if it's a short item in our newsletter. We want to make sure that companies have a chance to respond. And I think in general, our goal is not to be a minute by minute news destination. We want to bring you reporting and analysis on the biggest themes and stories happening in this industry.

20:33Jasmine Enberg: And sometimes that means we'll break news ourselves, or sometimes that means it's an original column, or it's data-driven analysis, or it's a reaction to something happening in the news. But we think about the creator economy really broadly. So it's not only about marketing or only about social platforms, is it's about everything that's happening in this industry. So of course, we want to stay current with what's going on, right? Right now, there's a lot of sports events. We just had the Super Bowl. We have the Winter Olympics. So that's something that we've been covering. But we're really thinking through, you know, why does this serve our audience?

21:04Jasmine Enberg: Why does this matter? Is there a news peg? Why now? Of course, like that doesn't mean that there isn't room for evergreen topics that we think are important. And there's obviously value also in writing about something that no one is talking about. But I think especially when we do interviews, we want some sort of newspeg and reason to write about it now. I mean, I think that's a core tenet of journalism. And we also want to bring something new to the conversation. When we think about interviews with people, we want people with a unique perspective and experience that can really speak about the topic.

21:31Jasmine Enberg: And just like other publications, when we make a mistake, we own up to it, we correct it. So I think the process is really similar to our previous work. So if you have stories that you think we should be covering or something to pitch us, you can send us a note to tips at scalablepod.com. We'd love to hear from you. And if you have any other questions about our process, we are happy to answer them. And you can send us a note on email as well. Here's what else is going on in the creator economy. Mr. Beast's holding company is acquiring Step Mobile, a teen-focused banking app. The move shows just how much the YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson has been expanding his business.

22:05Jasmine Enberg: We knew this was an area he was interested in, and it could all point to a future IPO. And it also gives him a lot of data about teens, which are, of course, a core part of his audience. Microsoft and Google are paying creators$400 ,000 to$600 ,000 for long-term partnerships over several months to promote their AI tools, according to a report from CNBC. It's a staggering amount and shows just how competitive this race is for AI, not just for engineering talent, but also for consumer adoption and shows how creators are emerging as a key strategy to get there. Alex Earle, for example, signed a deal with Microsoft to promote Copilot and has been using it for things like asking it to come up with a response for her to say to a guy who she's not interested in.

22:47Jasmine Enberg: What's also super interesting about the CNBC report is that some creators have actually turned down these deals for various reasons. So the price tag is not enough to convince some creators to plug these tools. The European Union preliminarily found that TikTok's addictive design is illegal, including its never-ending scroll, push notifications, and its hyper-personalized recommendations. Regulators said TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service or it will face large fines. TikTok has pushed back on this and says it plans to challenge the findings. All right, that's it from me. Now we have our conversation with Brian Albert, who is Managing Director of YouTube Media Partnerships and Creative Works to break down YouTube's role in the Super Bowl and more.

23:31Jasmine Enberg: Hi, Brian. Welcome to Scalable. Hey there, Kaya. Nice to be here. So Brian, the Super Bowl was this past weekend, but even before the game kicked off, it was playing out all over YouTube with brands that were advertising, posting their ads on YouTube and generating hundreds of thousands of views. And the conversation obviously continued after the game as well. You know, as YouTube has been leaning more into sports and these big cultural moments, what does that say to you about YouTube's role in this space? Hey, Jasmine. Listen, I think it's interesting because disruption is not just about distribution.

24:10So when we acquired the rights to stream the Brazil game earlier in the year, yeah, the game was on YouTube globally in front of the paywall. But I think the real disruption is that the game is no longer just a three hour broadcast. It's really everything you were just referencing. It's the 24 seven conversation. And that's where we see real fandom kicking in on YouTube. It's this notion that there's a game around the game. From all the analysis and highlights and debate and creator content, it's literally happening all week long.

24:50Jasmine Enberg: So the NFL also worked with YouTube and other platforms to invite a record 160 creators to the Super Bowl this year. How do you measure the success of these strategies? Well, I think it's pretty clear that the NFL is placing a big bet on YouTube and our creators to just help them build connections with the next generation of football fans. It started with us acquiring the rights for NFL Sunday ticket, extended to the Brazil game, which I mentioned. We also live streamed the second annual flag football game on Saturday night where we had a bunch of our creators. And, you know, ultimately, you know, the proof's going to be in the pudding based on are we able to help the NFL lower their average viewership age?

25:41Because we certainly see a lower average viewership age on YouTube compared to a traditional NFL broadcast. We saw Mr. Beast do a big ad, for example, with Salesforce. And I feel like creators have just become more prominent across Super Bowl ads. So when you're working with your clients to feature creators in ads, especially around big moments like the Super Bowl? What is kind of your pitch? How do you approach it? We just know that any client who runs an A-B task where you have a creator ad versus just a business as usual ad, the creator ad on YouTube is always going to deliver better results.

26:22Last year, we talked a lot about this case study we had with State Farm around the PGA Championship. They wanted to extend their activation beyond just the broadcast itself. They worked with a creator, Michael Collins, who paired with Ken Murphy Jr. to produce Caddy and the Kid. And Michael starred in a State Farm commercial. State Farm integrated into Caddy the kid. They ran 100 % share of voice takeovers against top golf creators on YouTube to really bring to life their overall PGA Tour sponsorship. And we're just seeing that honestly take shape across name your big cultural moment on the calendar where beyond just running paid media, clients are increasingly wanting to tap into top creators to either cast them as talent in ads and or integrate directly into their shows to just drive the greatest relevance with their audience and ultimately business outcomes that they're trying to accomplish.

27:37Jasmine Enberg: So live sports is one of the few reasons people still pay for cable TV and tune into it. So you are also launching a new sports TV package. How big of a revenue opportunity is sports for YouTube? Can you give us a sense of the scale? I mean, it's still a huge driver for the upfront market. One of the things my team focuses on is we've been leading our YouTube upfront negotiation since the 2014-15 upfront. So this will be my 13th cycle. And sports is a big deal. So being able to dip our toe in the water with the Brazil game this year was a really good opportunity to showcase our capabilities. I mean, it was an engineering feat.

28:24I don't know if either of you caught the game, but it was a perfect 1080p stream on every big screen across the country and around the world. And we sold out the game in two weeks. There was so much pent up demand from our clients to just be a part of a first, the first global NFL live game broadcast in front of a paywall. I watched that, by the way, and I don't normally watch the NFL. So that goes to show that, you know, it was working to reach new audiences for sure. So one of the things you mentioned is that brands, your clients really want to be working with more creators, right? But it's not just brands at this point.

29:10I mean, you've seen other media companies, particularly Netflix, really, you know, court and strike deals with a lot of YouTubers. What do you make of all of that? Are you concerned that, you know, these top creators could potentially leave YouTube, jump ship and go to Netflix? I mean, for example, in the Netflix, Spotify deal, those podcasters aren't allowed to post full episodes on YouTube anymore. I guess anything could happen. but my sense is that YouTube's been our creator's home for a couple decades now. We launched our YouTube Partner Program like 20 years ago. Over the last four years, we've paid out over$100 billion to over 3 million creators who are uploading a lot of content every single day.

29:55I think it was inevitable that other networks and platforms would start doing deals with them. And I think generally speaking, it's good for our creators because it's continuing to elevate their profile. It's giving them cash that they need to continue to grow their business. And we certainly haven't seen an impact on their commitment to YouTube and the upload frequency that we've historically seen with them. But I do think it underscores this trend that, you know, creator produced content is here to stay. And it is obviously drawing large audiences back to YouTube and other platforms for daily appointment viewing that studio produced content isn't delivering on anymore.

30:50Could you ever see YouTube returning to original content? I don't think so. I think we realize that our creators are much better at their job than we are at their job. So we'll continue to provide them with a global distribution platform and ensure that we're creating a healthy ecosystem of creators, advertisers, and viewers to ensure that they can build durable businesses.

31:22Jasmine Enberg: So you have been inking also a ton of media partnerships. So, of course, the rights to the Oscars starting in twenty twenty nine. Big deal. A new deal with the BBC as well, which was super interesting to see. So curious kind of what else is coming down the pipeline. I'm sure you'll be pretty mum about it, but I don't know. Do you want the Super Bowl rights? Would you ever partner with a streaming service like Netflix? Like any flavor you can give us? Yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to be breaking any hot news today. We had to try. Of course. At the end of the day, we just want to be able to stream the world's best content on YouTube, to provide our viewers with a reason to come back every single day.

32:02And what we continue to see is that with all the variety of content, there's something for everybody, regardless of your specific niche passions or interests. And I think that's what makes the platform so dynamic. So let's talk a little bit more about the ad business. Obviously, we've all heard the mantra that YouTube is now TV. What's your pitch to TV advertisers? I mean, it's really threefold. We talk a lot about our ability to just drive results. I mean, that's the value that they expect from us. We know we deliver higher ROI than TV and online video through our ad solutions. We also talk a lot about our unparalleled reach across connected TVs and mobile phones.

32:55All the growth in video right now is happening through streaming and social video. And the fact that YouTube is number one on all screens is a huge competitive differentiator for us. And last but not least, we talk a lot about our creators and the fact that they are the new Hollywood. And they are building these incredible businesses on YouTube that's enabling them to attract and retain massive audiences that we're able to ultimately provide our clients access to.

33:32Jasmine Enberg: You made a big splash at last year's new fronts. And this year, they are earlier than ever and separate from the upfront. So what can we expect? Which is a good thing. I think we all need some space between the two weeks. What could we expect from YouTube this year? At the new fronts, we're going to be focusing more on our social video story and just the explosion of interest in YouTube shorts. And at Brandcast, it'll be our total story. Because again, I think the unique part of YouTube as the epicenter of culture is the fact that we're connecting with audiences across connected TVs and mobile phones.

34:18So we're going to see a world where connected TV and vertical video are converging. I mean, we already see it on YouTube where surprisingly, you know, Gen Z is watching a ton of YouTube shorts on their connected TV. And we know some of our competitors will be launching connected TV apps this year. and we also know some of our traditional competitors are trying to get into vertical video. So I just think these two markets are gonna continue to converge and it will be the future of video as we know it. What do you make of that, of your competitors launching connected TV apps? I mean, Instagram for TV rolled out in December.

35:03Do you view that as a threat? Competition is always healthy. It makes all of us better. We've always said that we will continue to focus on, playing to our strengths, and honestly, just trying to help our clients achieve the business outcomes they need. If we do that, everything else takes care of itself.

35:22Jasmine Enberg: One area that YouTube has lagged behind other platforms is on is Infilter Marketing. So in Neil Mohan's annual letter, he pointed to more shopping tools and better ways for creators and brands to work together. So what's YouTube's kind of strategy to change that? And how will this work in practice? It's a huge priority. I would say over the last two years, and things certainly hit a fever pitch at Cannes last year, there's just more and more appetite from our clients to work with creators in a variety of capacities. As I mentioned earlier, it could be casting creators as talent in ads. It could be integrating into creator shows.

36:04We're also helping our clients navigate top creators as they seek to forge long-term creator partnerships. Think 12-month deals, a la, you know, celebrity or athlete endorsement deals, as well as, you know, helping them work with just more influencer-type creators on branded mentions in videos. So it's really running the entire spectrum. That's a pretty big undertaking. And I mean, YouTube, like other social platforms, have historically been pretty hands-off when it comes to influencer marketing. What does that mean for you internally? I mean, are you going to have to build out new tools or capabilities, build new teams, more hiring?

36:50How does that work? Tools and teams, for sure. So we know that there are third-party tools that influencer marketing agencies have historically relied on to do the creator brand matchmaking. So we've been very busy over the past couple of years integrating our YouTube API data into those tools so that our creators are just showing up. We're also building out new sales capabilities so that we can help our clients facilitate the matchmaking as well, especially when you're talking about a long-term creator partnership deal. So in our Q3 earnings last year, Philip Schindler, our chief business officer, mentioned a deal that we structured between Xfinity and Dude Perfect.

37:48That was very, you know, roll up your sleeves, white glove service, where we were pulling proprietary data from our tools, surfacing that Dude Perfect is reaching a very similar audience that Xfinity was able to reach. And fortunately, we're able to bring those two together.

38:08Jasmine Enberg: How can you do that at scale, right? Because especially if you're rolling up your sleeves and getting super involved, like how do you do that for, you know, millions of creators who are on the platform, not just kind of the top dude perfect channels? I think that's where the that's where the tools matter. So tools like Creator IQ and then Captivate and others. I mean, these are third-party SaaS platforms that influencer marketing agencies across the industry have been leaning on for years. So making sure that they have access to our YouTube creator data through APIs so that when we're not in the room and brands are trying to identify creators who could make sense for a brief, our creators are surfacing.

38:59because you're right, we can't provide white glove service to everyone, but we have to be able to do both because there definitely is appetite on both ends of the spectrum, working with creators at scale, as well as working with a small handful of top creators across long-term partnerships. So back to your clients, just for a moment, what would you say is the biggest question or point of confusion that you hear when you start conversations with them? I mean, ironically, the question we get a lot today is just how do we work with YouTube creators? And honestly, Jasmine, like we know we've been a little bit confusing on that point, which is why we've really tried to simplify our answer.

39:49You can cast them as talent in ads. You can integrate into their shows. You can forge long-term partnerships with them. You can do all of this around a big cultural moment, a la the State Farm PGA Championship example I shared earlier. But it's really just bringing to life the most effective way to work with creators, big and small, to help our clients achieve their objectives. Yeah. And I think part of that confusion also stems from the fact that we've all heard again, the YouTube is TV mantra. And I think when advertisers hear that, they automatically think of traditional TV ads. But it sounds like what you're suggesting is different, right?

40:31I mean, YouTube may function like TV, but the way that brands activate on there is different. Is that correct? I think it's very different. I mean, I think YouTube has become synonymous with TV just based on the diversity of content that's available, the fact that for over two years running, people have watched more YouTube on their connected TVs than any other streaming app in the US. And we've always had a really strong presence across mobile phones. So it's really been incumbent upon us to just help our clients navigate our ad solutions and now increasingly our creator solutions to help them achieve the best possible outcomes.

41:15Jasmine Enberg: So obviously, it's no secret that spending on linear TV has been on the decline for a long time. But many brands are still spending significant money there, right? There was a recent Wall Street Journal piece about this. So what do you think it will take for more brands to shift over their budgets? And what's kind of your pitch to the holdouts? Yeah, I listen, it's really hard to make sense of some of the third party numbers that get released on this point. Like 10 years ago, there were over 100 million paid TV subs in the US. Now, depending on the source, you know, it's plus or minus 50 million by the end of this year.

41:48So linear TV has been in systemic decline for over a decade. And I think when you take out live sports and news and viewers over 55, there's not that much left. And as I mentioned earlier, virtually all entertainment programming today and in the future is going to be streamed through roughly five apps on your connected TV and phone. And investment will absolutely follow eyeballs. I have no doubt about that. I mean, we've seen that across every transition that we've been through. When I started at YouTube 15 years ago, we were a desktop video platform. Like, imagine that. And then five years after that, we became mobile first.

42:41And today we're CTV first. And through every transition that's truly been led by our audience and how they choose to watch content, investment follows. So I know you're not primarily responsible for picking the creators that activate with brands, but is there anything that you can tell us about how can they stand out and potentially work with brands? I mean, the first thing is just finding creators that reach an audience that the brand's trying to reach. Like it really starts there because not every creator is created equal in terms of the audience that they're catering to. And our clients are obviously working with, they want to work with creators who are reaching a similar audience.

43:32And then our advice to both our clients and the creators is to just let the creators do their thing. I mean, the reason they built such a massive audience is because they're just so authentic and they have this trusted two-way relationship with their viewers. So if a brand provides a brief Xfinity to Dude Perfect, in the example we were talking about earlier, let Dude Perfect integrate Xfinity into the content in a way they believe is going to be natural and authentic to their audience. That's when clients are going to see the best results.

44:19Jasmine Enberg: We hear that a lot. And that's always the advice that, you know, we hear on panels from creators, from, you know, people that work with them. But I think there's still resistance from the brands to kind of give up that control. And then we end up seeing a lot of kind of transactional influencer marketing. So what has to happen for that to really change? Yeah. I mean, listen, it's hard to give up the control. You know, the more trust that builds between brands and creators who are reaching the audiences that they need to reach, it becomes easier. And I think, honestly, that's why we've seen this trend towards longer term creator partnerships.

44:59Like instead of just working with a bunch of creators on an ad hoc basis for specific campaigns, can you identify a half a dozen or so creators that you're going to work with over 12 months where you're really going to get to know them and they're really going to get to know your business? I mean, that's ultimately where I see all of this headed. which honestly is no different than the way celebrity and athlete endorsements have worked in the past. Like way, way before Google, I was in sports marketing, representing professional tennis players, negotiating endorsement deals. So ironically, not surprisingly, the conversations we're having today with clients very much mirrored the conversations I was having way back then trying to pair big brands with the professional tennis players we're representing.

45:54Jasmine Enberg: All right. Well, we've made it this far into the conversation without saying AI, which is crazy. So we definitely want to talk a little bit about AI. What's the most surprising way you're seeing advertisers use AI in your clients? I'd say on a couple fronts. As a business, we've really leaned into a bunch of third-party creative AI platforms to help our clients run the most effective ads on YouTube because these companies enable our clients to assess their ads against our creative best practices at scale and also ensure that every campaign they're running has sufficient asset variety, sixes, fifteens, thirties, vertical ads.

46:43I would say from our client's perspective, they're obviously beginning to test all the generative AI tools that exist to just make their overall creative development process more efficient. And I think you're going to see a lot more there. Like to the extent that clients are able to ring cost savings out of the creative development process and then invest a portion of that savings back into working media to help them drive outcomes, I have no doubt that that's going to be a use case moving forward. So we're running a program right now where we're providing 50 of our clients with some production funding to support testing these third parties.

47:35Because we know that creative has always been the single biggest performance driver in any campaign. And if anything, what has become super challenging for our clients is that they not only have to manage their creative across YouTube, but think about every other platform they're running ads against. And for big, you know, top 200 video spenders, you really need the robust capabilities that an enterprise SaaS platform offers. So I know it's almost impossible to predict the future and everything moves so quickly these days. But what do you hope will be possible with AI, say, a year from now? What kind of conversations do you think you'll be having with your clients?

48:23I mean, that's really hard. I mean, we've been moving at lightning speed, but I think the one thing that grounds us is that AI will likely free all of us up to do what we do best, and that is to be creative. So my hope, knowing that in our ad formats, AI has been making all of the media optimization levers automated for our clients. So think contextual placements, the audiences that you're reaching, the specific ad asset that's running. Like in the past, that required people. Now with our video reach campaigns, video view campaigns, demand gen campaigns, that's all automated, which honestly frees us up to focus on having this creative conversation with our clients, knowing that if someone doesn't receive the results that they're seeking, oftentimes you can point back to the quality of the ad that they're running.

49:36So my sense is that AI is going to free all of us up to focus on what we do best, and that is human creativity and ingenuity to just keep driving things forward.

49:49Jasmine Enberg: Is there anything we missed, Brian? What did we not ask about? What are you really focused on, excited about that we didn't touch on? One of the interesting things we've observed on YouTube, we talked earlier about this game around the game phenomena, is the fact that fandom is also fractured into these like generational trends. So if you think about Gen Z, they're following the players and their favorite creators because for them, their personality is the game. And what we've seen is that, and this is based on a recent survey we've done, 74 % of Gen Z respondents said that they often spend more time watching content that discusses or unpacks something than the game itself.

50:39When you get to millennials, they're following the data. These are folks who are second screen strategists obsessed with fantasy. You get up to Gen X and they're following the past. They're using YouTube to relive these nostalgic moments and connect with sports history. So I think that's super interesting as well. As you were saying that, I was thinking about how that relates to me as a millennial. And I think I'm more Gen Z based on that description than anything else. But thank you so much, Brian. We really appreciate it. Thank you. It was great to meet both of you.

51:23Thank you.