YouTube announced at the Digital Content NewFronts a new product enabling brands to advertise on its fastest-rising videos. The product, called Breakout Videos, identifies videos as they begin to go viral and then along with other viral videos allows advertisers to place their video ads within them. The idea is that many brands want their products to be perceived as cutting edge or cool and their association with viral videos helps them achieve this.
Breakout Videos is part of Google Preferred which allows advertisers to reach the top 5% of videos created by YouTube stars. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stated, “This will allow marketers to feature their brands alongside the next big thing”.
At the NewFronts YouTube brought out over 100 of the top YouTube stars and also announced Sesame Studios, a new channel from Sesame Street.
Big Bird also made an appearance to unveil Sesame Studios, a new YouTube kids channel from the creators of Sesame Street.
Magna Global, which buys ads for Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Fiat and others announced at NewFront that they have agreed to buy $250 million in video ads from YouTube.
But that’s not the story, it’s that Magna is shifting these ad dollars from its clients TV budgets.
This shift is something that has been predicted for a while and it may finally be happening as the reach and capability of online video has matured, especially on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. As Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has famously pointed out, its audience size is the equivalent of three Super Bowls happening every day.
Per the Wall Street Journal, David Cohen, president of Magna Global North America commented, “We have negotiated a meaningful share shift from linear television to digital video”.
That’s big news and could be the beginning of a trend that should raise the hairs on every TV ad executives neck. Online video already has the reach and eyeballs, it has the data on behavior and often can target based on specific individualized information such as job title, location, income and what products and services a person has been looking at buying. This is something that TV can’t currently offer, but they are working on that capability via internet connected TV’s. Unfortunately for them, the television based ad platforms connected to the internet and therefore the data are years from mainstream adoption and implementation.
Online video on the other hand… has that data now.
YouTube announced that it’s developing a new solution that will let videos earn money while a Content ID claim is being disputed. When both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, YouTube will continue to run ads on the video and hold the resulting revenue separately. When a Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, they’ll pay the revenue out to the appropriate party.
“We understand just how important revenue is to our creator community, and we’ve been listening closely to concerns about the loss of monetization during the Content ID dispute process,” said product manager David Rosenstein. “Currently videos that are claimed and disputed don’t earn revenue for anyone, which is an especially frustrating experience for creators if that claim ends up being incorrect while a video racks up views in its first few days.”
“Even though Content ID claims are disputed less than 1% of the time, we agree that this process could be better,” he said. “Making sure our Content ID tools are being used properly is deeply important to us, so we’ve built a dedicated team to monitor this. Using a combination of algorithms and manual review, this team has resolved millions of invalid claims in the last year alone, and acted on millions more before they impacted creators. The team also restricts feature access and even terminates a partner’s access to Content ID tools if we find they are repeatedly abusing these tools.”
Rosenstein noted that YouTube is also paying close attention to creators’ concerns about copyright claims on videos they believe are fair use. Last year, they launched the fair use protection program.
The new Content ID improvements will roll out to all YouTube partners in the coming months.
Google just announced a new six-second video ad format called Bumper Ads, which it will sell through the AdWords auction on a CPM basis. The ads, the company says, are ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency on mobile, where “snackable videos” perform well.
The ads are a response to evolving viewing habits among 18-49-year-olds, who are more and more watching videos on their smartphones, even in their living rooms.
“Given the succinct nature of the format, we’ve seen Bumper ads work best when combined with a TrueView or Google Preferred campaign,” says Google video ads product manager Zach Lupei. “In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration. We also see that Bumpers work well to drive incremental reach and frequency when paired with a TrueView campaign.”
“As a quick and fun format, Bumpers lend themselves well to serialized content,” says Lupei. ‘Audi Germany cut up their longer TrueView ad to introduce their Q-series SUVs with evocative German ‘q’ words like querpass (cross kick) and quantensprung (quantum leap). Their early adoption of the format mirrors Audi Germany’s tagline ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ (‘advantage through technology’).”
In a blog post, Lupei also discusses how Atlantic Records used Bumper Ads as an early tester.
The ads will be available in May. You’ll have to talk to a Google sales representative. More ad formats with similar goals are also on the way.
Google announced the launch of spatial audio for on-demand YouTube videos giving depth and distance to sound the way it has done with video with 360-degree videos. This appears to be the next step in the video service’s foray into improved virtual reality technology.
YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan says, “To make sure all creators can tell awesome stories with virtual reality, we’ve been working with companies across the industry. We’re working with companies like VideoStitch and Two Big Ears to make their software compatible with 360-degree live streams or spatial audio on YouTube and more will be available soon.”
“What excites me most about 360-degree storytelling is that it lets us open up the world’s experiences to everyone,” he adds. “Students can now experience news events in the classroom as they unfold. Travelers can experience faraway sites and explorers can deep-sea dive, all without the physical constraints of the real world. And today’s kids dreaming of going to a basketball game or a concert can access those experiences firsthand, even if they’re far away from the court. What were once limited experiences are now available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.”
There’s a YouTube playlist for “immersive videos with spatial audio” available here so you can try it out on your Android device. There are six videos on the list.
YouTube intends to make 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio technologies available at all its YouTube Space locations. These are in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, New York, São Paulo, Berlin, Mumbai, and Paris.
Google said on Tuesday that beginning later this month, AdWords will begin rolling out a new calculation for impression share. This will affect reports in the AdWords API if you’re relying on impression share columns and run Video Campaigns.
The roll out will occur over the next few months for all accounts and impressions. Google says if you run campaigns on YouTube, your impression share stats will become more accurate when your account goes live.
“Historically, a small percentage of impressions on YouTube videos were not being included in the calculation of the impression share columns,” explains Michael Cloonan from Google’s AdWords API team. “We’ve implemented an improved algorithm to more accurately count impression share volume that now accounts for these impressions.”
Google announced the launch of a new Custom Blurring tool for YouTube that lets video creators blur anything in a video that they wish. In the past, they’ve offered the ability to blur all faces, but this takes the technology further and makes it more useful.
The tool comes as a new Enhancements feature on the desktop versions of YouTube. It lets you blur any object in a video, even if it’s moving.
Just choose the video you want to edit, and select Custom Blurring within the Blurring Effects tab in the Enhancements tool. Then, draw a box around what you want to blur.
“Whether you want to blur sensitive information such as a license plate or cover up a wardrobe malfunction without reshooting an entire scene, the new Custom Blurring tool will let you blur objects throughout your video, right within YouTube,” says YouTube privacy lead Amanda Conway.
“The Custom Blurring tool will automatically blur that object as it moves throughout the video, using our new innovative technology that can analyze the motion of any video on the fly,” explains Conway. “At any time, you can move the blurred area, resize it and choose when the blur starts and stops. There is also a “Lock” option to blur something that doesn’t move at all. When you’re done making edits you can either save the changes as part of the same video or save a new copy, which also gives you the option to delete the original video.”
The feature should go a long way toward keeping videos out of privacy trouble.
Google announced a new ad format called real-time ads. The announcement came buried in a post about the countdown to the “big game,” which discusses YouTube AdBlitz, game day commercials, etc.
The real-time ads are a way for brands to run across numerous Google-owned and network sites at once. Google’s Natalie Marchant says:
There are millions of moments that bring everyone together during live events – the play that clinches the game, or that “left shark” performance during the halftime show. To help brands be a part of these conversations in a way that’s timely and relevant, today we’re opening our Real-time ads beta to more brands including Wix.com, and we plan to roll it out more broadly later this year. With Real-time ads, brands will be able to instantly run an ad across YouTube, hundreds of thousands of apps, and over 2 million sites in our Google Display Network with a message that ties directly to the big moment people just experienced live.
Whether it’s a presidential election, Coachella, Mother’s Day or the Super Bowl, if it’s happening in the world, it’s happening on Twitter. Starting today, advertisers will be able to reach audiences interested in these events with a new feature called event targeting. With event targeting, you can activate around live moments, quickly and easily. We’ll help you discover and plan for these moments, learn more about the participating audiences through valuable insights, and with one click, create a campaign that delivers the right message to just the right users as the event unfolds.
YouTube AdBlitz will currently let you watch ad teasers. On the day of the Super Bowl, you’ll be able to watch and vote for your favorite ads.
Earlier this month, Google called upon the masses to vote for their favorite ads in five categories: the ad you wish you were in, the ad that gets you going, the ad that’s your guilty pleasure, the ad that give you the feels, and the ad that restores your faith in humanity.
The results are now in. At YouTubeAdsOfTheYear.com, you can see the winners.
For “You Wish You Were In,” the winner is:
For “Restores Your Faith in Humanity”:
For “Is Your Guilty Pleasure”:
For “Gives You Feels”:
For “Gets you Going”:
Last week, YouTube revealed the year’s top ads in general, based on watch time, organic video views, engagement, and audience retention.
YouTube announced the top ten trending ads for 2015 as it released its YouTube Ads Leaderboard.
The ads were determined by watch time, organic video views, engagement, and audience retention.
“From crushing stereotypes to sharing heartfelt messages, these videos represent the most popular ads watched by YouTube viewers around the world,” said YouTube’s Meredith Argeris.
“While their messages may be unique, one unifying theme of these top trending ads is that they all went mobile,” she added. “Collectively we watched these top ads more than 470 million times this year, and nearly two-thirds of these views took place on mobile. For the first time ever, more people watched the top 10 ads of the year on mobile devices than on desktop devices.”
Here are the top ten ads:
1. Clash of Clans: Revenge (Official Super Bowl TV Commercial)
2. Hyundai : A Message to Space
3. Love Has No Labels | Diversity & Inclusion | Ad Council
4. Boom Beach: Speech (Official TV Commercial)
5. adidas: Unfollow feat. Leo Messi
6. Always #LikeAGirl – Unstoppable
7. Durex – #Connect – Official
8. Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge – Official Introduction
Google is calling on the masses to cast their votes for the best ads of 2015 on YouTube. You can vote in five categories.
The categories consist of the ad you wish you were in, the ad that gets you going, the ad that’s your guilty pleasure, the ad that give you the feels, and the ad that restores your faith in humanity.
From realizing pipe dreams, to imagining possibilities and removing labels, the best YouTube ads of 2015 were full of energy and feeling. Viewers have been moved, enticed, entertained and surprised by the ads that top creative agencies have delivered this year.
We’ve partnered with The Webby Awards to select 25 nominees based on this year’s YouTube Ads Leaderboard for the most iconic ads of 2015 — and now you get to cast your ballot for your favorites.
Here are the nominees for the ad you wish you were in:
Nominees for the ad that restores your faith in humanity:
Nominees for ad that’s your guilty pleasure:
Nominees for ad that gives you feels:
And finally, the ad that gets you going:
Voting ends in a week, and winners will be announced on December 9th. You can vote once a day. Vote here.
In 2006, a young YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion dollars. Already a popular media platform, the video format of choice at the time was the MiniDV linear tape that held about an hour of video.
Just four years later in 2010 YouTube relied over three billion views per day and video quality upgraded to the Flip UltraHD bringing 720p, 8GB of storage, and over 4 hours of video. This year, YouTube reaches the 18-49 year old age bracket better than any cable network in the US and the iPhone thrusts video into the future with 128GB of storage and over 60 hours of HD video.
Every year the way we view video gets bigger and better. Streaming services like Twitch and Periscope have hundreds of millions of active users, streamers and viewers alike. Smartphones are at the forefront of the camera quality growth, putting mobile at the top of the list for how people are viewing digital content these days. Videos are expected to make up 60% of of all mobile data traffic by 2020 and 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. What are you looking forward to for the future of digital video?
Google announced that TrueView for Shopping and Shopping ads on YouTube are now available in AdWords.
The former was announced in May to let businesses run product ads with related videos on YouTube.
“TrueView for Shopping campaigns create interactive video ads that highlight the value of your products and drive consideration,” explains Diya Jolly, Director, Video Ads Product Management at Google. “These TrueView video ads have actionable shopping cards embedded in them which provide an easy bridge to purchase for viewers. They are also a powerful audience solution, enabling you to remarket to viewers who may have visited your site or viewed your other videos.”
These ads are pictured above.
Shopping Ads for YouTube were announced in September. They let you show click-to-buy ads within partner videos on YouTube.
“Shopping ads on YouTube work even lower in the funnel, by enabling shopping cards on creator videos that feature your products,” says Jolly. “This is a great way to capture demand when viewers are most interested in exploring and researching products. These also allow you to extend the reach of your Shopping campaigns beyond www.google.com.”
Shopping Campaigns in AdWords must be opted into search partners to have Shopping ads extended to YouTube.
Google also announced a new way to set up a video campaign at the beginning of the campaign creation process. Goals like driving sales, app downloads and branding can be set up right up front. More on all of this here.
Last month, Google unveiled YouTube Red and announced that a new standalone YouTube Music app was on the way. YouTube Red is a new paid subscription-based tier that allows YouTube users to watch videos without ads, save videos to watch them offline, and play videos in the background while using other apps.
That costs $9.99 and it also enables you to better take advantage of the new YouTube Music app, which the company unveiled today.
“No matter where you start in the app, the music will never stop,” says product management director T. Jay Fowler. “Every song you play or artist you choose will take you on an endless journey through YouTube’s music catalog. A simple tap and you’re on your way, enjoying your favorite music and discovering new artists effortlessly. The home tab will recommend tracks just for you and create personalized stations based on your tastes.”
The app is significantly different than Spotify and the like. A key difference is that YouTube has tons of stuff that you won’t find anywhere else. This includes remixes, covers, live videos, etc. Of course the sound quality on this content varies too.
“And you can also amplify your experience with a YouTube Red membership,” explains Fowler. “With YouTube Red, you’ll get to experience all that the Music app has to offer without ads. You’ll also have the ability to listen to music offline and seamlessly switch between video or audio-only (so you can decide whether you actually watch Silentó whip and nae nae). And also be able to hear any video play, even when you’re in another app or have your screen turned off.”
The app is available for iOS and Android now and Google is giving you access to the “amplified” experience for free for fourteen days.
A video from the YouTube channel In a Nutshell – Kurzgesagt is making the rounds, and already has over 1.2 million views in just a couple of days. It’s called “How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views” and looks at how it says Facebook and content thieves are profiting from stealing videos from other content creators. These videos being reposted on Facebook by people who are not the creators typically originate on YouTube.
As Facebook video continues its massive growth, this is going to be an increasingly important issue that both Facebook and content creators have to deal with. The issue is not helped by the fact that Facebook treats Facebook videos better than YouTube videos when it comes to ranking in News Feed.
Facebook announced last week that it generates 8 billion video views per day.
YouTube is ramping up its virtual reality efforts.
The company has announced two new VR features for its Android app – VR video support and the ability to watch any YouTube video via Google’s Cardboard VR headset.
“First, YouTube now supports VR video—a brand new kind of video that makes you feel like you’re actually there. Using the same tricks that we humans use to see the world, VR video gives you a sense of depth as you look around in every direction. Near things look near, far things look far. So if you were excited about 360° videos, this is pretty freakin’ cool,” says YouTube.
“Our second bit of news is for the universe of existing YouTube content. And that’s the fact that you can now watch any video using Google Cardboard, and experience a kind of virtual movie theater. Just select the new “Cardboard” option from the watch page menu, drop your phone into your viewer, and you’re done. You’ll now have the largest VR content library right at your fingertips.”
Google announced the latest phase of its efforts to give advertisers and agencies more choice in viewability reporting with third party viewability reporting for YouTube.
Advertisers will now be able to choose from third party vendors in addition to Active View. Initially this will include Moat, Integral AdScience, comScore and DoubleVerify, starting with Moat in early 2016.
“We’ve been investing in a broad set of measurement solutions for brands through a combination of product innovation with our own solutions like Brand Lift and Active View and partnerships with leading third parties like comScore and Nielsen on GRPs,” says Google’s Sanaz Ahari. “Viewability has long been a focus for us. Built on the foundation of our Active View technology, we launched the ability to buy only viewable impressions on the Google Display Network back in December 2013 and recently completed moving over the last advertiser campaigns from CPMs to viewable CPMs. We’ve worked to ensure viewability rates on YouTube are amongst the industry’s highest. And Active View now works seamlessly across video, display, mobile web and mobile apps (on YouTube and for publishers using DoubleClick for Publishers), and has been adopted by over 80% of advertisers using the DoubleClick platform.”
“With the MRC-defined industry standard as a base-line for viewability, we are also helping advertisers and agencies go beyond transacting on the industry standard to also measure individual viewability objectives,” says Ahari. “In order to support this we have begun launching supplementary metrics in Active View, like the ability to see average viewable time and soon when an ad is 100% in view for any length in time. These are the first few in a lineup of supplementary metrics that will provide advertisers with additional data points relevant to their specific campaigns and needs.”
Google says it will continue to expand measurement options for marketers on YouTube through the new partnerships.
YouTube Red was announced last week as a new membership option for YouTube users that enables them to skip the ads, save videos to watch offline and play videos in the background while using other apps, which is ideal if you’re using YouTube to listen to music. The cost is $9.99 a month, though there’s a free one-month trial available in the U.S.
While YouTube Red was announced last week, it actually became available in the U.S. on Wednesday.
“Your Red membership works anywhere you sign into YouTube, whether it’s across mobile devices, desktop, connected TVs, or on our recently launched Gaming app or our upcoming Music app,” says senior product manager Matt Leske. “And as a special bonus, YouTube Red comes with Google Play Music, so subscribe to one and automatically get access to the other. Starting early next year, YouTube Red will get even better with access to new, original series and movies from some of your favorite creators.”
YouTube says that as with its ad revenue, the majority of YouTube Red revenue will go back to the YouTube Creator community. According to the company, creators will make as much or more money on YouTube than they would have without YouTube Red. In fact, on a per-user basis, a paying member will generate more money for creators than a free user that sees ads.
“Creators are the lifeblood of YouTube,” Leske says. “So with Google Play Music subscribers instantly joining YouTube Red, we will pay a portion of the revenue we receive from these subscribers to our creators on day 1. Even with 30 day free trials, our creator community will make as much or more as they would have without YouTube Red.”
Creators aren’t charged any new fees and their videos will still be part of YouTube Red regardless of whether or not they have memberships. Creators don’t have to do anything differently whatsoever.
YouTube has a help center article with a YouTube Red FAQ section for partners and creators that should answer most of your questions. For those it doesn’t, there’s a help forum here.
Even before the launch of YouTube Red, YouTube was becoming a bigger generator of revenue for Google. The company talked this up a great deal during its earnings conference call last week.
YouTube executives recently indicated that they’re not concerned about the similarity between the name YouTube Red and that of popular porn site RedTube.
Questions about the profitability of YouTube have loomed for years, but Google spent a fair amount of time on Thursday’s earnings conference call talking up the video service’s performance as its revenue is on the rise.
CFO Ruth Porat noted that it continues to grow at “a significant rate with growth driven primarily by video advertising across TrueView and Google Preferred” and that the company’s “movement in Google Sites paid clicks and CPCs primarily reflects the continued growth in YouTube TrueView.”
Google (under Alphabet now, remember) pointed to the recently announced Customer Match feature as an element likely to contribute to growth going forward. This lets advertisers target people whose email addresses they have and reach existing customers across Google.com as well as YouTube and Gmail.
“Whether they’re searching on Google, checking promotions on Gmail, or watching videos on YouTube, we can deliver the most relevant information based on what they’re doing, wherever they are, when they’re looking, and on any device they’re using,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce at Google in announcing the feature last month.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Thursday’s call that people watch hundreds of millions of hours of video on YouTube every day and that they’re seeing a great deal of momentum on mobile, mainly driven by the YouTube app.
“The growth in mobile watch time also extends to videos featuring product reviews and information,” he said. “People turn to YouTube when they want to research, buy or fix a product. For example, mobile watch time for apparel videos has doubled this year and videos about toys have also doubled.”
“We see the same growth in advertising on the platform too. And we continue to invest in building ways for marketers to reach consumers effectively, like our recently announced shopping ads for YouTube, which lets people shop directly from a video, turning any relevant video into your digital storefront.”
In a recent article, we looked at how YouTube is getting better for selling products between its cards for increasing conversions, TrueView for Shopping feature, and its new shopping ads.
This week, Google announced YouTube Red, a new subscription service that costs users $9.99 a month to use YouTube without ads. It appears to be aimed at competing with Spotify and the like and give the company another YouTube-based revenue stream.
Pichai admitted he expects most users to continue using the free ad-based version of YouTube, but the new service provides a way for them to give users the right experience for them on an individual basis.
What’s going to continue to benefit YouTube more than anything is increased mobile use.
“Look, I mean to shift to video is a profound medium shift, and especially in the context of mobile,” said Pichai. “And obviously users are following that. You’re seeing it in YouTube as well as elsewhere in mobile. And so advertisers are being increasingly conscious. They’re being very, very responsive. And so we are seeing great traction there, and we’ll continue to see that. They are moving more of their traditional budgets to YouTube and that’s where we’re getting traction.”
Seeking Alpha has the full transcript of the earnings call here.
A photo posted by Lindsey Stirling (@lindseystirling) on
She couldn’t top PewDiePie, however. The video game-playing Swede, real named Felix Kjellberg, apparently rakes in $12 a year.
A pair of comedy YouTubers tied for second place. Smosh, best friends from California and the Fine Brothers, who got famous with their react and autotune the news videos, both pulled in $8.5 million.
Says Forbes:
She plays the violin. She dances. Then she does them at the same time, and it’s kind of amazing. Stirling began posting her videos of herself performing in 2007 after failing to be signed by a major record label. Now they are begging to sign her, but too late—she doesn’t need them anymore. Explains Stirling: “It’s a very loyal fan base that wants you to succeed because they found you. It wasn’t some big radio station or record label that shoved art down someone’s throat.”
Stirling, who combines violin with dancing and other performance art, burst on the scene in 2007. She plays originals, covers, and responses to other popular songs.
Her YouTube channel has over 7.1 million subscribers and more than a billion views.
Back in February, Google launched YouTube Kids – a new YouTube app designed specifically with children in mind to keep them entertained and safe from the more adult-oriented side of YouTube. It’s not always perfect, but it has been a pretty big hit for the company.
The app has been downloaded 8 million times since launch, and is frequently ranked in the top 5 kids apps in the App Store. It has a 4+ rating on Google Play.
On Thursday, the company announced some new features including new ways to discover and watch videos and some new features just for parents.
For one, the app now supports a variety of devices for watching content on TVs including Chromecast, Apple TV, game consoles and smart TVs. There are also new guest-curated playlists from sources like National Geographic Kids, Kid President, and Geena Davis. More are coming from others like Vsauce and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.
Google says new videos are being produced and uploaded to YouTube Kids every day, including original shows and series from HooplaKidz, TuTiTu, SciShow Kids, DreamWorksTV, and others.
Google is also trying to better educate parents on how the app works.
“We also want to make it easier to get started using the app,” says YouTube Kids product manager Shimrit Ben-Yair. “When parents open YouTube Kids, we’ll explain upfront how our systems choose and recommend content and how to flag videos. We’ll also prompt you to make a choice about how broadly you want your child to explore—turn search on to access millions of family-friendly videos, or turn search off to restrict your child’s experience to a more limited set. Either way, parents decide the right experience for their family from the get-go. This will roll out on the app in the coming weeks.”
“We’ve also heard some parents prefer a personal passcode, rather than a spelled-out code, so we’ve added this option to access parental controls,” Ben-Yair adds.
Ben-Yair reminds parents that the app is not perfect. It strives to make sure everything is family-friendly, but every know and then something might slip through the system. This is worth keeping in mind, but also remember it gives you a means to flag inappropriate content, which should still be few and far between.
