YouTube hosted its annual Brandcast ad sales NewFronts event on Thursday night in New York, wooing brand marketers and their media buying agencies to shift more money from ads on TV and rival streaming sites to the Google-owned video giant. The message: “YouTube’s influence is greater than ever because, big screen or small, the world comes to YouTube to watch and share video. At YouTube Brandcast, guests will get an exclusive look at the groundbreaking creators and innovative brands making waves on YouTube. See on stage the people who shape what matters in content and culture today.” Its latest moves in the quest to bring more big advertisers into its tent for “The Next Big Thing” focus on advertising and distribution include bringing programmatic advertising to “Google Preferred.” VIDEO The new Google Preferred Breakout Videos platform will now let brands automatically buy ads on its hottest viral videos, automating ad placement of their content alongside the site’s “fastest rising, hottest videos,” as YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki described it. An extension of its Preferred product that launched in 2014, the goal is to enable marketers to take advantage of the most popular viral videos on the site that come from lesser known channels. Preferred lets advertisers reserve spots from among the top 5% of YouTube’s most popular channels where stars like PewDiePie, Lilly Singh (who hosted Brandcast 2016) and Bethany Moto thrive. VIDEO Google Preferred Breakout Videos enables advertisers to programmatically place their ads with videos like YouTube hit Silento’s “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” video, the top trending video of the past 12 months on YouTube. VIDEO YouTube also announced its reach to 18-49 year-olds on mobile devices during primetime is now greater than the top ten television shows combined. A day earlier, Interpublic Group announced plans to shift $250 million from traditional TV networks to YouTube starting in October. “Gone are the days of testing this platform,” said YouTuber Singh, the 27-year-old comedian from Toronto better known by her YouTube handle, Superwoman. “That is so 2013. YouTube is proven and the audience is here. I hope you are too.” Toyota, for one, has plans to increase its Preferred spend by 400% this year because consumers demand better content, as outlined by Toyota’s Jack Hollis, Group VP for US marketing, in the video below: VIDEO On the tech company as service provider front, the video-streaming giant is leveraging its acumen to put cable TV shows online as the turf battle between cable companies and cord-cutters augments. YouTube’s online television service, Unplugged, will compete with traditional TV by streaming live TV, and has been in development for four years, Bloomberg reports. The consumer service bundles television channels for streaming along with premium content. CBS, 21st Century Fox, Viacom, and NBCUniversal are reportedly in discussions with YouTube. YouTube’s initial foray into paid subscription services, YouTube Red, lets users stream videos ad-free across different devices for about $35 a month. Unplugged, which could launch as soon as 2017 for less than $35/moth, would reportedly be part of the deal. The concept of unplugged dates to the “in-the-round” performance from Elvis Presley’s 1968 Comeback Special followed by The Beatles’ studio jams in the 1970 film Let It Be – and most notably, MTV Unplugged which debuted in 1989 and is making a comeback. VIDEO Also announced at Brandcast 2016: The NBA will soon launch two series in virtual reality, allowing viewers behind-the-scenes looks at basketball legends and other related content. “Also, YouTube announced that all NBA inventory will now be available through Google Preferred, allowing game highlights to show up in Google Search and across YouTube, letting brands access fans who now account for 700 million annual views,” as Adweek noted. Sesame Street (which brought Big Bird to boogie with Singh on-stage at the Javits Center) will get its own channel on YouTube Kids, which YouTube said now receives more than 10 billion views per year. “Sesame Studios” will feature new characters and popular YouTube stars in both short-form series and original stories. Google must step up its game with YouTube as competition is getting fierce. “Skinny bundles” like Dish’s Sling TV launched in 2015, a lower-cost, live-cable streaming service with 400,000+ subscribers. On the gaming side, PlayStation Vue is the answer to cord-cutting, as Vanity Fair notes. VIDEO Hulu, now an elder in the space, is also launching a new streaming cable service with live streams from networks like Fox, ABC, ESPN, and the Disney Channel, likely priced at about $40 a month. With monthly cable bills that average upwards of $100, the rising tide of cord-cutters and brands lining up their eminent domains may lift the media business to new streams of revenue, delivery and content. As TIME writes in its recap of the NewFronts, the way we watch television is changing — and the winners are the tech companies, tech-savvy consumers and major TV networks. The losers: fans of “plain ol’ TV” along with satellite companies and smaller cable networks struggling to gain eyeballs and advertisers. As for brands? Google and YouTube certainly hope they fall in the former category and push more of their marketing budgets their way.
YouTube and parent company Google are hoping to attract more advertisers with the announcement that programmatic advertising will be available on Google Preferred. The move will mean marketers can engage with audiences of viral content from “smaller, lesser-known channels.” Google Preferred allows advertisers to reserve space on the top 5% of YouTube’s most popular channels. Toyota is one of the first companies to increase its budget by 400% for Google Preferred.